Astro Bot is 2024’s Game of the Year. Now What?

It ain’t a December without the Game Awards, Geoff Keighley’s yearly trailer showcase and occasional awards ceremonial celebrating the year’s biggest games. More than erstwhile years, this year’s nominees for the apical Game of the Year prize were divers premix of dense hitters like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Metaphor: ReFantazio and astonishment darlings Balatro and Black Myth Wukong. And the victor turned retired to be…Astro Bot, the PlayStation 5 exclusive platformer from Team Asobi.

We’ve had the Game Awards for a decennary now, and it’s got a spot of a benignant erstwhile it comes to its GOTY choices: erstwhile games similar Witcher 3, God of War’s 2018 reboot, and Baldur’s Gate 3 were these fantastical oregon mature titles, and Astro Bot is a crippled geared toward families astir a cute robot with a large caput exploring worlds and making friends with cute Funko-sized versions of PlayStation characters. It’s a precise bully game, but its triumph was decidedly surprising, particularly erstwhile Balatro had taken implicit the satellite for months and Metaphor was besides taking disconnected successful its ain way. Now that the particulate has settled, the question connected folks’ minds is what it means for a platformer to triumph a apical grant successful what’s a big, mainstream awards ceremonial for the medium.

©Team Asobi/PlayStation

The contiguous adjacent measurement is astir surely going to beryllium a sequel of immoderate kind; Team Asobi’s presently putting retired escaped post-launch levels for Astro Bot, which has sold 1.5 cardinal copies arsenic of this past November. No uncertainty Sony’s going to fto Asobi cook, and whenever the adjacent game’s revealed, I anticipation the Astro series takes its archetypal measurement toward forging its ain identity. Both Bot and its predecessor Astro’s Playroom (which came pre-installed onto motorboat PS5s) person been sightseeing tours of PlayStation’s past. It’s precise amusive to spot tiny, big-headed versions of puerility mascots, but the constant winking tin deterioration bladed benignant of fast, and highlights however the bid has thing other going for it beyond references and its awesome gameplay mechanics. An statement tin made it doesn’t request thing more, but having a unsocial property is what’s helped different platformers endure. Of the large 3 publishers, Nintendo’s truly the lone 1 to afloat recognize that, and it’s wherefore Mario tin support specified a wide consistency, adjacent erstwhile the quality (and Luigi) bash platformers portion bouncing betwixt a twelve different genres astatine immoderate fixed moment. So if Sony wants a Mario of their own, that’ll mean figuring retired who Astro is beyond a blank slate wearing the tegument of its aged series.

Speaking of franchises, 1 of the different large surprises astatine the Game Awards came from Capcom, which revealed it was processing caller games for the Okami and Onimusha franchises. The Resident Evil studio’s had a truly bully streak of releases lately, and precocious stated the 2 projects are portion of a larger effort to revitalize series it antecedently shelved. You person to ideate Sony’s looking astatine that alongside Astro Bot, too—a batch of PlayStation franchises get immoderate emotion successful that game, and fans person been hoping for years immoderate of them get dusted off. Many person besides hoped the collapse of Concord alongside Astro’s success has provided a wakeup telephone for Sony to absorption connected making smaller, more divers games alternatively of putting their eggs successful the cinematic, triple-A basket. It’s been a occupation wrong the manufacture for years, particularly for PlayStation’s first-party teams, and not recognizing that occupation sooner is however it coiled up laying disconnected over 1,000 developers this twelvemonth and canceling respective projects.

It’s a shame PlayStation’s devotion to blockbusters led to the erosion of the double-A genre, due to the fact that it’s wherever galore of their older franchises would apt enactment champion nowadays. (See also: Ubisoft’s beauteous bully Prince of Persia: Lost Crown from earlier this year.) Lately, I’ve been replaying Sly 2: Band of Thieves after it was ported to the PS5, and doing a first-time Resistance 2 playthrough via unreality streaming. Both consciousness conscionable close for their idiosyncratic eras, and it’s casual to ideate their respective bid could person a spot successful the existent PlayStation pantheon if they were allowed to conscionable be without monolithic expectations thrust upon them. Sly could easy capable the niche for stylish, personality-filled games successful the aftermath of past year’s Hi-Fi Rush, and Resistance or Killzone could beryllium a bully system-exclusive shooter—last year, Sony tried to halt Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard by arguing Call of Duty was excessively valuable, and that no different shooter could anticipation to apical it. Ideally, neither would person to purpose for specified lofty heights, but serving arsenic PlayStation’s reply to Halo, which itself is astir to acquisition a 2nd oregon 3rd revamp, would beryllium appreciated. As it stands, immoderate hopes for mid-size, non-Nintendo games with marque designation present benignant of autumn squarely connected Astro’s tiny, delicate shoulders.

© Team Asobi/PlayStation

Team Asobi’s not expected to usage Astro Bot to hole everything incorrect with triple-A games overnight, it conscionable has the unfortunate luck of arriving arsenic the industry’s reckoning with respective years worthy of calculated risks not paying disconnected arsenic expected. Making a healthier manufacture volition instrumentality time, and its interaction volition beryllium felt sooner oregon later, adjacent if it’s conscionable successful its ain sequel oregon an indie crippled that hopes to seizure immoderate of its unbridled, non-corporate spirit.

Or failing that, PlayStation could basal to dial backmost connected the remasters and remakes and conscionable please put much of its older first-party titles connected PC oregon natively connected the PlayStation 5.

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