Sony previously confirmed that it won’t be touching its usual first-party exclusives until after April 2025, which many took as a sign that 2024 will be a relatively quiet year for PlayStation. But, nine months in, and it’s been everything but silent over at PlayStation land. Between Helldivers 2‘s huge launch earlier this year, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth making waves soon after, Stellar Blade and Black Myth: Wukong showing to everyone that there’s an untapped goldmine in non-Japan Asian countries, Sony’s future is brighter than ever despite major stumbles like Concord, for example.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that Sony appears to have finally found its newest mascot in the eponymous Astro Bot, Team Asobi’s fourth outing in this once-niche but incredibly beloved franchise.
After spending years showcasing the features of the PlayStation VR and DualSense, Team Asobi finally had a shot at making a standalone title with the titular character front and center, and the former Japan Studio offshoot certainly delivered.
With a remarkable 94 Metacritic score has become the highest-rated game of 2024 so far, reigniting discussions about the future direction of PlayStation’s development strategy. The timing of Astro Bot’s release couldn’t be more poignant, coinciding with the abrupt shutdown of Sony’s ill-fated live service shooter Concord, which lasted a mere 11 days before Sony decided to pull the plug.
Astro Bot’s success is a culmination of traditional game design principles, with tight controls, inventive level design, and charming presentation. Its innovative use of the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller, fully delivering on the promise of immersive haptic feedback and adaptive triggers first showcased in the PS5 pack-in title Astro’s Playroom, sets a new standard for other first-party studios who might want to step up their game up, DualSense-wise.
Astro Bot serves as a loving tribute to PlayStation’s 30-year history, incorporating a wide range of references and nods to iconic franchises that have defined Sony and its bespoke platform over the past three decades. This celebration of heritage and the combination of cutting-edge technology and gameplay is what allows Astro Bot to provide an experience unlike any other.
It remains unclear if Astro Bot’s critical success is enough for Sony to reconsider its recent push towards live service games even more and instead double down on crafting high-quality single-player experiences.
For what it’s worth, Sony’s CFO, Hiroki Totoki, did mention that Sony is investing a massive amount of money into new and fresh IPs, a category that Astro Bot certainly falls into.
The best-case scenario is that Sony will see Astro Bot as evidence of a significant market for polished, self-contained titles that prioritize fun and innovation over long-term monetization strategies. However, until we see the numbers, we can’t risk reading too much into Astro Bot’s early success.
Around this time a decade ago, Bloodborne won plenty of accolades and remains an influential title to this day, but Sony appears to have left it to gather dust.
Then again, Bloodborne might have been a Sony IP, but Sony doesn’t exactly own FromSoftware or its parent company, Kadokawa Corporation. It’s possible that Sony, with more authority to exercise and plan around Astro Bot, will use the momentum it’s bound to generate to create its next big franchise.
Either way, Astro Bot is proof that there’s still room for creativity and innovation in the video game industry amidst ballooning budgets that’s forcing developers to play safe and take fewer risks.
