‘Astro Bot’ Could Be a Paradigm Shift in Video Game History | by Ben Ulansey | Nov, 2024
Team Asobi’s new release is groundbreaking, but that hardly means it’s cutting-edge
Released to critical acclaim and quickly labeled a candidate for the game of the year, Astro Bot has become a new source of pride for Sony and it’s not hard to see why. It’s joyous and inventive and downright fun to play for gamers of all ages. It’s accessible, well-structured, and almost perfectly paced.
One of the features that makes Astro Bot most special is the way it pays tribute to so much of the world of video games that predates it. Just as the Super Smash Brothers series gathers characters from the scattered history of video games and brings them together to brawl, Astro Bot pulls from PlayStation’s past with a copious array of characters strewn across fully traversable 3D environments.
Among the game’s many highlights are the levels that serve as love letters to some of Sony’s biggest series, like God of War, Uncharted, and Horizon Zero Dawn. They function as microcosmic versions of those respective franchises. For fans who’ve played the games referenced, it’s hard not to grin with delight at some of the Easter eggs latticed throughout the stages.
