Review: Astro Bot (Sony PlayStation 5)

Let’s all remember for a moment here that Sony basically gutted its Japanese game development operation, and the developer behind Astro Bot, Team Asobi, was the only one that survived. Even then it was diminished. Then consider that it created this game, with its abundant creativity and warmth. Where all of Sony’s other studios and development partners are busy churning out shallow superhero stuff, “mature games by numbers” and live service games that are pulled off the market a few hours later, here’s Astro Bot, reminding us that once upon a time Sony was capable of supporting creativity.

Astro Bot is a 3D platformer, but should never be reduced to such a simple genre frame. Instead, it is really just pure whimsical energy, where small but whimsical spaces are filled to the brim with colour, motion, and energy. And branding. So much branding.

If I have one issue with Astro Bot it’s that it plays very heavily into the uncomfortable parasocial relationships that people form with game companies. Almost every element of the game is branded with PlayStation stuff. The spaceship is a PS5 controller. The PS5 itself shows up, in the sense that building the thing is the goal of the entire game. Coins bear the PlayStation branding. Astro Bot’s eyes are the PlayStation’s D-pad directional inputs, and so on. When coupled with how warm and inviting the game is, it’s acting as outright propaganda to get players to feel like Sony is their best friend in the whole world, responsible for much of the joy they find in life. To me, it comes across as a glorified advertisement, but then I am cynical about these things.

Whether you love the paid-for branding exercise or not, what is objectively true is that it’s gorgeous to look at, and not least because the variety in this game is extreme. To play it feels like the experience never stops being different, and behind every new stage, corner and wall is something new to delight and inspire. We’ve seen Nintendo elevate platforming to this level in the past, but it’s always been the thing that distinguishes what Nintendo does from the rest. Astro Bot, like Nintendo’s best efforts, ensures that there isn’t a single second where you feel like you’re done “too much” of something.

That variety is also reflected in the gameplay, and in Astro Bot you’ll feel like you’re constantly playing around with new abilities and new applications of existing abilities. The downside to this is that if you have a particular favourite mechanic or type of level, you’re only going to be able to experience it a precious few times. Then again, on the other hand, you’ll also never have the chance to get sick of that favourite mechanic. I like to think of it as the “mine cart” effect from Donkey Kong Country. Yes, I like the mine cart levels.

And then it backs all of this variety up with such a level of replayable refinement that no one could possibly experience without it putting a big smile on their faces. Astro Bot is eminently playable, no matter what your skill level with platformers is. It is somehow highly accessible without feeling like it’s pandering, and while it’s not going to challenge those who master pixel-perfect platformers, the charming delights that it offers will be engaging and engrossing nonetheless.

It’s all designed to such a precise degree. The only real issue with how Astro Bot plays is that it sometimes gets a little gimmicky with the hardware – for example, you will be asked to use tilt controls at times, and while Astro Bot does the best job I’ve seen with that it’s never as perfect as simply pressing buttons. I know that the gimmicks do actually contribute to the whimsy, but there are times where Astro Bot seems to compromise the playability that tiny bit to indulge something very unnecessary, and it’s surprising that the developers went that way. Thankfully, perhaps in recognising that these elements are the game’s chink in the armour, the developers also rarely deploy them.

Honestly, I don’t have much else to say about Astro Bot. It’s not a game with a deep and rich narrative. Nor is deep in any particular sense. That’s not a criticism, it’s just that there’s not much to analyse based on how I usually focus on in my reviews. The game’s core quality is that it’s a whimsical, creative playground of ideas. We do need more of that in video games, and while the art style and overapplication of branding does deserve some reflection for what it implies about the relationship between video games, marketing teams, consumers and the idea that this is meant to be an art form, what is undeniable is that Astro Bot is worth every second you put into it.