If you’re curious about some of the most obscure characters, we have a guide to 21 of the more tricky ones, with details on where you’ve seen them before. However, those future Astro Bot games may be in a bit of a tough spot. As of now, the direction Team Asobi has in mind for this franchise is not entirely clear. This game served as a celebration of the brand and was built around repairing a PlayStation 5. While the studio could just do that again, it would risk coming off as repetitive.

While some abilities are more fun than others, they nearly all work seamlessly. As Astro, you’ll strap on the ability and intuitively understand it. Sony is releasing another stream of Astro Bot expansions, the first of which is available today, February 13, adding a total of five new levels and as many special bots.

Astro Bot has to be one of the most unique platformers in years and that’s saying something since 2023 was all about Super Mario Bros. What makes levels unique can partly be thanked to the power-ups which come in a variety of styles. For example, in boss battles, players can get hearts that act like extra lives. Those PlayStation-themed levels we mentioned are some of the highlights, too. After defeating each boss — each one a fun fight, by the way — you’ll meet an iconic Sony character, such as Kratos, and they’ll open a new stage based on not only their worlds, but their mechanics.

Perfect Shows To Binge On New Year’s Day (& Where To Stream Them)

One of the mini games featured was AR Bots, a tech demo-like experience that made it seem as if 40 little robots were inside the DualShock 4. By swiping the touchpad you could throw them into the room and interact with them through the PlayStation Camera in AR, before sucking them back into the controller. While today PlayStation’s headquarters may be located in San Mateo, California, the history of Sony’s beloved video game console brand started in the early 1990s in Tokyo, Japan. Ken Kutaragi – who would later become known as the father of PlayStation – had been working together with Nintendo on a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo. When this got canceled, Kutaragi went to Norio Ohga (Sony’s CEO at the time) with the proposal of making Sony’s own console.

The simplest way to describe Astro Bot is honestly to compare it to Mario, as it employs a similar kind of “world” structure. There are six themed galaxies you’ll explore, each of which is filled with a handful of main story worlds, hidden extra levels and challenges, a boss battle, and a final world themed after a prominent PlayStation franchise. It’s unlikely that Astro Bot will save the world, let alone be successful enough to appease a company chasing endless growth, but it’s a game that we so desperately need. I don’t read the PlayStation history references as brand advertisements so much as Team Asobi trying to remind Sony of what it has lost in the PS5 era.

Some of the more memorable levels stem from popular Sony franchises like God of War, with Astro wielding Kratos’ ax on one planet. Team Asobi really mined Sony’s vaults, far beyond simple Crash Bandicoot callbacks, and into weird and wonderful games like LocoRoco and Vib-Ribbon. The game also crashed on me twice, both times erasing more progress than I’d have expected since I assumed it auto-saves after each level, but I’d lost about three or four levels of progress in both instances. However, I admit these crashes came at the end of my long 11-hour session with the game on my first day with it, so maybe it was an issue Team Asobi will address. Still, the hard crash backpedaling on my saved data was strange and somewhat soured what was a marathon of smiles for about 10 hours of that day. Normally, these levels are as brief as 30 seconds, but they require perfection and give the game a taste of trial-and-error it otherwise consciously rejects.

What Are All Special Bots In Astro Bot? Nariko – Heavenly Warrior

The fact is that the game is both easy to learn and play, yet it’s able to be entertaining with the sheer amount of things to collect and discover. While exploring a certain level in the first world, I came across a portal of sorts that actually led me to unlock a few of the game’s secret levels. TG88 made me wonder just how many levels there actually are in the game. The amount of collectibles and secrets there are to discover is also staggering; it’s enough to keep you playing for hours on end and keeps achievement hunters busy. Lastly, the game even has a ton of gameplay callbacks to their older IPs which pulls the nostalgia strings perfectly.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 Is Still Nowhere To Be Found, But Now There’s An Astro Bot Cameo

The secret exit in Hieroglitch Pyramid is at the very end of the level, after you’ve slid down the spikey path and made it to the normal exit. Lure it to the pillar to your right or left, which you’ll notice is an unelectrified platform. If done correctly, the lightning will strike the pillar, activating it. Do this until both pillars are lit up and then kill the alien. Collect the sponge power up and proceed until you find the area with the large pool (filled with rubber ducks) near a building with a burning chimney. You’ll know you’re in the right spot because there will be a large bamboo chute on your left and a dirty mural on your right.

No Rayman heli mouse ears in that level I bet or wind for puzzles/attacks. @kcarnes9051 The main levels I would say are fairly straightforward to get through without much difficulty. However, as you play through the game, many smaller challenge levels will become available and these amp things up, testing your platforming and combat skills with short gauntlets.

Thankfully, checkpoints are often generously and frequently located, meaning you’re only ever moments away from the spot of your previous demise. Over 150 of them in fact, as characters from PlayStation’s vast library of games have made their way into Astro’s world in the form of other bots. There are the ones you’d expect like Lombaxes, tomb raiders, and a certain rapping dog but, delightfully, some are plucked from the more obscure end of the scale. It’s light touches of irony and slapstick humour like this that keep Astro’s playful tone going throughout.