After the Concord disaster – the most expensive blunder in recent gaming history – Sony can find some solace in the runaway success of a very different PS5 game. Astro Bot was released on Friday and immediately became the second-highest scoring game of the year on the review aggregator Metacritic, with an average of 94/100 putting it just a point behind Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
Of course, Concord with Astro Bot are different genres and with very different budgets. But the huge disparity in how they’ve been received could teach Sony some lessons for the future.
Anyone who has a PlayStation 5 probably already knows the lovable robot character, who first appeared in Astro Bot Rescue Mission for PlayStation 4’s PlayStation VR in 2018. Astro Bot made another appearance in the short pre-installed adventure game Astro’s Playroom when PS5 was released in 2020, and now he has a fully fledged title.
Developed by Sony’s Team Asobi, Astro Bot is a 3D platform game with 80 levels across 50 planets. You control the title character using the PS5 DualSense controller and have to rescue 300 Astro Bots hidden across the levels, many of them dressed like characters from the console’s past.
Astro Bot proves players still want platform games (Image credit: Team Asobi / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Why is Astro Bot so popular?
Platform games might be considered retro these days, and Astro Bot is a world away from Sony’s more cinematic recent releases like God of War and The Last of Us. But the game’s success suggests people are craving simpler games that are just fun and relaxing to play rather than immersive, story-driven epics. People also love retro at the moment, and Astro Bot is packed with references to PlayStation history, which has helped the game bridge generations, uniting parents and kids.
The game benefits from being playable in small doses and completable in around 12 hours, and there are no microtransactions or other live-service annoyances. That said, Astro Bot is also very well made. It’s a polished take on the platform genre, and there are lots of creative surprises and an incredible attention to detail. Some have even compared it to Mario. Most crucially, it’s a game that makes you smile.
What can Sony learn from Astro Bot’s success?
Concord, which was cancelled after two weeks, took eight years and a huge amount of money to make, and it’s not the only live service game to flop recently. It could have made a lot of money if there had been market for it. But there wasn’t. The start contrast provided by Astro Bot just days later suggests that Sony’s decision to pivot to live service may have been a misjudged attempt to chase the likes of Fortnite.
Astro Bot was made in less than half of that time by a team of not many more than 60 people, which makes it a much more sustainable model to follow, and one that allows a game to become profitable at a lower threshold.
In an interview with the BBC, Nicolas Doucet, head Team Asobi, suggested that players have an appetite for games that offer “a two-course meal that is going to be just the right amount” rather than never-ending open-worlds since every minute of the experience is fun and engaging.
He also thinks the small team was a benefit, allowing everyone to have creative input. He told Bloomberg, “When you have a really big team, sometimes you forget why you’re doing what you’re doing. For three years, if your job is to do backgrounds, you’re not sure where those trees are going to go. It can lead to unnecessary work. To be able to always put it in context – why am I doing what I’m doing – is really needed.”
Apparently, every two weeks, everyone would pick an aspect of the game they liked and an aspect they wanted to improve. “Ideas come from everywhere on the team. It’s not like game designers have a monopoly of good ideas. It could be audio, visual, technical people. You want to mix it up,” Doucet said.
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