As reported earlier this year via rumors, Sony announced a new Astro Bot game coming to PlayStation 5 on September 6. Following the State of Play reveal, Team Asobi Creative Director Nicolas Doucet talked about the game in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, describing the new Astro Bot as the studio’s biggest-ever game thanks to eighty levels spread across six planets.
The charm of Astro and how he resonated with people went beyond what we expected. At that point, we decided to make a big game. We wanted to make a big game. This is really about going up one notch — really several notches — and having Astro’s big story. We call it Astro Bot because we treat this as a new beginning. That’s a really, really big game. I think for us, that’s the biggest game we’ve ever made.
The core effort has gone into making Astro’s own game so that he can stand on his own feet as a new PlayStation character with a good reputation and confidence. But also on top of that, there is this whole coating of nostalgia.
This makes sense since Team Asobi got larger three years ago in preparation for this game. Astro Bot will feature lots of cameos from other PlayStation characters. Just in the reveal trailer, we’ve seen Kratos from God of War. Doucet added:
It’s a kind of eye candy. There’s going to be more. We’re going to be talking over time about what they mean to the game, but, yes, there’s going to be a big reunion. There’s a lot of characters from the PlayStation universe crossing over with Astro’s path. It’s an Astro Bot story, of course, with Astro being the main character, but there’s a lot of PlayStation characters that play a part.
There will be many other nods to different franchises and stories, too.
I would say it’s pop culture in general in a very broad sense. That’s something we’ve always done as part of our games — look at iconic real-world inspirations, a lot of them from Hollywood movies or famous animation — and looking at themes that really cross generations.
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