Designing: the next Astro Bot - Two possible futures for the franchise
The last type of this article was in ‘For the Love of the Game’, I think they’re better suited here in Features and Opinions. All future ones will be here from now on.
Astrobot came out around a month ago now and it’s been on my mind ever since. It’s probably going to be my Game of the Year and I eagerly await even the small time trial update. That being said, while it will be many people’s first experience with the character, there’s actually been a few games. I’ve played Playroom VR, Rescue Mission VR, Astro’s Playroom and now Astrobot, so despite this games success, I believe we could move it on.
There are two ideas that have sprung to mind as of late. Starting with the more out there one:
Astrobot and the Playstation All Stars
If Sony are content to let Astro Bot be the series that just promotes Playstation, complete with the controller, symbols and PS5 mothership, then they may as well take the concept of the special levels from Astrobot and Spin them into their own game. Imagine a Lego game; Replace the Lego people with Astrobots and the theming with Playstation.
I think a good way to handle things would to be to take a note from Playstation All Stars Battle Royale (stick with me here). A major gimmick of that game was mixing things together – stages would have elements of two different franchises together – Hades from God of War in Ratchet and Clank’s Metropolis for example and each character’s campaign would have crossover too – 1v1’s of Sir Dan from Medieval fighting Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal. You can have all that and more in classic slapstick fashion.
The alternative idea is a bigger undertaking but perhaps more likely:
Astrobot Adventures
I don’t know if the naming convention is meant to elicit memory of Lego Horizon Adventures or Sackboy: The Big Adventure but I suppose it works.
If Astro Bot could be compared to the more linear, wildly creative many locale levels of Super Mario Galaxy then Adventures would have to be more akin to Odyssey.
What does that actually mean? Well Odyssey has twelve odd worlds that are much larger sandboxes to explore – there’s the main objective which is apparent then generally a ton of things out in the world as well as side areas that house one or two solo puzzles. I’m not saying Astro Bot has to copy 1:1 but it’s as good a layout as any. The key is to have a sandbox, not an open world.
Astro Bot so far has relied on the premise of great level design supplemented by the cameo appearances of first party and Sony associated franchises but I think if they want to move past the image of just the Sony mascot (Sackboy avoided this fate) then he is going to need an actual range of characters to call a cast. Astro Bot seemed like it was starting this with the Fennec Fox in the trailers but they ended up merely set dressing for the hub world. Astro could do with a companion, a rival and a new rogues gallery – the UFO guy they have just isn’t cutting it, they’ve used the robo animals a couple of times now and the enemies being fairly generic doesn’t help memorability. I’m not expecting them to have a Goomba overnight, just something that stands out for such a hot new property. I know I talked about expanding beyond Playstation characters but use Polygon Man as a villain if you really have to, something different.
It doesn’t matter so much in the games that have been released so far but if I had to highlight a problem with Astro Bot is that movement is generally fairly limited. Any moves more exciting than a jump are relegated to a short hover. He can’t dash or dive. If you put Astro in one of the Odyssey
sandboxes, you’d have a crap time. I’m not saying you need to make Astro super nimble because I don’t think that really suits his character or design. If the various power-ups we’ve seen in the series become permanent additions then that could be something. Existing powers like the Dog Dash and Bird Hop can be adjusted to more permanent upgrades like F.L.U.D.D from Super Mario Sunshine. Things like the Frog Fists, Grapple hands, Mouse Mode and Sponge Bot are more traditional power-ups rather than movement (the grapple is both I guess) but they would work as things that can be accessed at any time. Levels in Astro Bot are designed around a single gimmick, an open world could let multiple of these power-ups work in tandem.
Astro Bot has something of a Pikmin thing going on, really lightly. In the hub world, some collectibles need a certain number of bots to get to – they’ll make a ladder, a bridge or help in a tug of war. Expanding on these mechanics would be a good edition even if it’s just for individual puzzles. The game Tinykin mixes platforming with the Pikmin minion management surprisingly well. The Astro Bot’s are a lot bigger than Pikmin so the levels and puzzles would have to fit around that. Whether or not you still use cameo bots or bots based on those concepts (A warrior bot based on Kratos for example) would be an interesting decision.
Throw all of this together with some minigames inspired by the VR titles and maybe some actual VR content to keep the whiners happy and you’d have an incredibly solid follow up to Astro bot.
There’s just two ideas for what could make a good Astro Bot sequel. It’s a testament to the games quality that I’m already excited for future content to come. Guess the time trials will have to tide me over for now. When Astro Bot 2 does come out though, I’ll be there Day 1.
