The series is a spin-off of The Playroom series, and began with the 2013 launch title for the PlayStation 4, and its later entries have won numerous awards. Find release dates and scores for every major upcoming and recent video game release for all platforms, updated several times per week. Outside of bosses and minibosses, there initially doesn’t appear to be a great range in enemy types.

Some are on the linear side, testing your platforming skills, but others are more open, giving you some freedom as to how to achieve your goal. You might find yourself equipped with gloves that allow you to pummel enemies at range, for example, or a bulldog strapped to your back with which you can charge into heavy items and send them flying. As previously mentioned, anyone that has played Astro’s Playroom will have a good idea of what to expect here.

While a lot of them are based on first-party properties, like The Last of Us, Shadow of the Colossus, and Ape Escape, there are many more based on third-party titles — some of which are amazingly obscure. There are one or two surprising absentees, but on the whole it’s a remarkable selection that had us grinning with every character we recognised. It’s all delivered with so much affection that it’s hard not to love it. Speaking of power-ups, our robo-hero makes use of numerous new toys throughout the game. Some appear more than others — the frog gloves, which let you hit enemies from afar and swing from poles, come back a few times, while some one-off mechanics are our favourites. 789win allows Astro to shrink in size, while another turns him into a sponge, able to soak up and then eject water.

Astro Bot Trailers

Each is missing a beloved item that can, once regained, give them a clever new animation to perform in the hub world. However, some long-time players of platformers produced by Sony will be disappointed in Astro Bot’s current endgame offerings. Astro Bot begins with a PS5-shaped spaceship traveling the stars when its crew of 300 Bots suddenly encounters a mischievous alien who breaks the ship and scatters its pieces and crew across multiple galaxies.

Many of the bots — 173 of them, to be precise — are dressed as characters from PlayStation games past and present. They’re digital collectible figures, Funko Pop alternatives for 30 years of PlayStation gaming, celebrating almost every Sony property you can think of. Naturally, you’ll find Ratchet and Clank, Kratos, and Nathan Drake here; third-party heroes with a PlayStation connection, like Metal Gear Solid’s Snake and Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter, are also represented. Whether for licensing reasons or just to make a fun guessing game, the bots are given coy names like Dad of Boy (Kratos), Spinning Marsupial (Crash Bandicoot), and Immune Survivor (The Last of Us’ Ellie). There are some deep cuts that will have all but the most encyclopedic of PlayStation fans scratching their heads. They gradually fill up the desert crash site, turning this hub world into a bustling Sony museum.

Crash Site Vip Bots

This is a game that celebrates the entire history of video games and one of the few 3D platform games I’ve played that truly goes toe to toe with the best Nintendo has to offer. One of the biggest announcements during last week’s PlayStation State of Play livestream was Astro Bot, the full-fledged sequel to the excellent Astro’s Playroom that comes preinstalled on PS5. Just like Astro’s Playroom, Astro Bot is a 3D puzzle-platformer that pays homage to PlayStation history and makes heavy use of the PS5 DualSense controller’s many unique features like haptic feedback and dynamic triggers.

Astro Bot is the most recent entry in the Astro Bot series and was released in 2024 for the PlayStation 5 in celebration of PlayStation’s 30th anniversary. Customers find the PlayStation 5 console to be an incredible value for money and report that it works perfectly. The build quality receives mixed feedback, with several customers noting that it feels flimsy.

Originally introduced as a tech demo character, Astro Bot has grown into PlayStation’s definitive platforming hero. Astro is the main character of the Astro Bot series and serves as the captain of his ship’s bot crew. A brave and adventurous robot, Astro will stop at nothing to rescue his crew and bring them safely back. In this PS5 platformer, you need to explore every level in search of Astro’s crew mates. As part of our Astro Bot guide, we’re going to show you where to find every Bot in the game. That’s not to say that Astro Bot — a lavishly produced, classic platform game starring Asobi’s robot mascot — shirks its promotional duties, or cuts the ties between its irrepressible lead character and the hardware he lives on.

Astro Bot Related Links

You can also hover over the Nebulas to see how many total collectibles there are in the sub-levels. The hub area ‘Crash Site’ also contains bots and puzzle pieces, which you obtain by interacting with the blue markers to call your bots for help. Then there are 2 extra Nebulas, one for the final story part, and one is the ‘Lost Galaxy’ that contains all 11 secret levels. As galaxies are explored and Bots are rescued, Astro Bot’s hub world stations begin to unlock, including a closet with outfits for Astro and a claw machine that gives players a place to spend all their collected coins. The machine dispenses new Astro costumes, cosmetic options for the PS5 controller spaceship, and joy for the rescued PS-themed Bots.

The hub world also continues to grow as you progress through the game. As you rescue more bots, they will make their own little spaces out and about, all in the area around the ship. You’ll track down puzzle pieces across each stage as well, with these working towards unlocking a habitat that grants you additional collectibles such as skins for Astro Bot or the controller you fly around on. The puzzle pieces unlock these areas in order, so you’ll have these locations granted to you in the same order as everyone else.

I never lose my momentum because of a mistimed jump and can usually recover if I misjudge a spinning platform’s trajectory. In addition to a punch and spin attack, the jets from my boosters can fry enemies below me. That means that I rarely need to stop moving to take care of a few pesky bots.

That nirvana is thrown into disarray when a dastardly alien interrupts the party, stealing the mothership’s parts and scattering hundreds of bots across the universe. Astro Bot’s various worlds have a lot of colorful characters you’ll meet along the way. Astro Bot is developed by Team Asobi, who also worked on previous titles where Astro appeared, including the PS5 console’s tech demo Astro’s Playroom. Astro Bot from Team Asobi is a brilliant 3D platformer, one of the best PS5 exclusives, and an absolute joy to play from start to finish. It’s not for “helpless people who already can’t beat the game”.