Sony announced that Astro Bot is getting five more challenge levels and VIP bots in a series of free updates starting on February 13, 2025. The five new levels will be released individually over the next few weeks.

The first of the five new Astro Bot levels, Tick-Tock Shock, already appeared in the game. It first made an appearance at the PlayStation XP Tournament Final in London in January 2025, but no announcements were made about it coming to the game. Today, Team Asobi revealed via the PlayStation Blog that four additional levels will be added in the coming weeks.

Here are the levels that are being added, and when:

• February 13, 2025: Tick-Tock Shock
• February 20, 2025: Thrust or Bust
• February 27, 2025: Cock-a-Doodle-Doom
• March 6, 2025: Hard to Bear
• March 13, 2025: Armored Hardcore

Each level will be added in an update at 6am PT/9am ET every Thursday. In order to access the new levels, players must first complete the main game. Each level will feature a new Special Bot to collect, who will be automatically obtained by completing the level. After this, the levels will become speedruns so you can attempt to place your best time on the online rankings.

The new challenge levels are the latest post-launch content added to Astro Bot. Previously, Team Asobi added five speedrun levels in October 2024 and a Christmas level in December 2024.

Astro Bot is out now for PS5, and five new challenge levels are being added up until March 13, 2025.

The post New Challenge Levels Coming to Astro Bot Starting Today appeared first on Siliconera.

It’s that time again! Over the next few days, Siliconera is celebrating the best of 2024, with platform awards each day until the overall winner next week. Read on for our PlayStation Game of the Year selections!

These awards represent the consensus of the Siliconera staff. Multiplatform games are considered on the platform for which they received the most staff . For more of the year’s award selections, check out our Game of the Year 2024 archive.

Astro Bot 36431o

While Sony’s dismantling of its Japanese studios has been heartbreaking, its last group standing put in the work and showed just how good games could be. But hey, we’re not kidding ourselves; we’re probably just getting this game and not a full rebuild of what was. Still, what a game it is! The best platformer without Mario in the title (and better than a lot of them with it), Astro Bot takes the warm fuzzies of nostalgia and surrounds them with well-crafted levels and super-polished mechanics. The little bot’s previous adventures have been wonderful, too! But this is the first one without any need for asterisks: a great, full game for everyone.

Metaphor: ReFantazio 1f5p5b

The combat and characters of Metaphor paper over the game’s many rough narrative elements, building a high fantasy take on Persona that holds up well to lofty expectations. (And the soundtrack is of course stellar.) It’s familiar enough to make long-time Atlus-heads happy, while sporting a fresh enough setting to add variety to the studio’s catalog. (Check out Stephanie's review for a deeper dive into Metaphor.)

Winner: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth 5a6c4m

While we briefly considered giving the award directly to in-world card game Queen’s Blood, the whole of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is worthy of our PlayStation Game of the Year 2024 honor. This excellent return to the world of Square Enix’s most famous game is filled with love and care, meeting (and subverting) the expectations of longtime fans. (But yeah, also, you should definitely check out Queen’s Blood.)

What is your PlayStation Game of the Year 2024? Let us know in the comments!

The post Siliconera’s PlayStation Game of the Year 2024 appeared first on Siliconera.

Kadokawa announced that Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake has become the most trending game in Japan in 2024. The company based the announcement on the results of a poll taken from 181 people throughout the Japanese gaming industry, which was held by its Weekly Famitsu magazine.

In the same ranking, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Team Asobi's PlayStation 5 exclusive title Astro Bot—which won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2024—placed second. Atlus' multiplatform RPG Metaphor: ReFantazio rounded up the ranking's top three at third place. The top three titles in the 2023 edition were The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Final Fantasy XVI, and Super Mario Bros Wonder.

In the same press release, the Weekly Famitsu editor-in-chief Hiroko Saga noted that the HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest 3 managed to gain new younger fans in addition to the long-time fans that have been ing the title since its original release on the Family Computer (NES) in 1988. Dragon Quest 3 has been arguably noted as the series' most popular entry in Japan, as it had often ranked the highest in Japanese public polls.

The most trending game poll will be part of the annual end-year coverage for the last Weekly Famitsu issue set to be published in Japan in 2024. The coverage will also include comments from Japanese game creators about their aspirations in 2025. Kadokawa will publish the "January 9-16, 2025" t edition of the magazine on Thursday, December 26, 2024.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, the winner of the most trending game poll by Japanese game creators, is available worldwide on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The post Dragon Quest 3 Remake Voted the Most Trending Game in Japan appeared first on Siliconera.

Team Asobi has announced that a Christmas level called Winter Wonder will be added to Astro Bot in a free update to celebrate the holiday. It will be added to the game on December 12, 2024, during The Game Awards 2024.

The new Astro Bot level will be called Winter Wonder. While Team Asobi are staying quiet about what players can find in the level, they have provided a screenshot of the level’s opening fly-in. The level appears to be based on a small snowy town with a Christmas tree at the center. The team has promised that more new bots can be found in the level, although they’re keeping their identities a secret for now.

While the new bots featured in Winter Wonder are unknown, fans have some theories based on copyright information found in the game’s credits, representing games that do not currently appear in the game. These include Worms, Croc and three Ubisoft properties: Rayman, Beyond Good & Evil and Assassin’s Creed. Copyright information for Tomba! was also recently added, further increasing speculation that a new bot based on the game is set to appear. Whether any of these will appear in the new level remains to be seen.

This Christmas level is the latest free content that’s been added to Astro Bot since the game released. During October and November, five speedrun levels were added, each bringing two new VIP bots based on other PlayStation games. These included four Helldivers, Cayde-6 from Destiny and Eve from Stellar Blade, among others.

Astro Bot is out now for PS5, and the Christmas level called Winter Wonder will release in a free update on December 12, 2024.

The post Astro Bot Winter Wonder Update Adds Free Christmas Level appeared first on Siliconera.

Sony and Team Asobi released a schedule for the free DLC speedrun levels set to come to Astro Bot. The first of these levels is set to release on October 17, 2024, while the final one will release on November 14, 2024. It is unknown if more will appear after that.

Nicolas Doucet, studio director at Team Asobi, discussed the announcement in a post on the Playstation Blog. The free DLC will be a pack of challenge levels designed to be speedrun, with leaderboards available too. The first of these is titled Building Speed, which will feature a robot dog named Barkster who functions like a jetpack. Additionally, each new level will add two new bot characters based on other franchises, for a total of 10 more cameos.

The full DLC Schedule is as follows:

• Building Speed releases on October 17, 2024.
• Let it Slide releases on October 24, 2024.
• Spring-loaded Run releases on October 31, 2024.
• Helium Heights releases on November 7, 2024.
• Rising Heat releases on November 14, 2024.

Back in September 2024, Doucet confirmed several new bot characters would be added to the game in a free update. Good Smile Company also recently re-ran the Astro Bot Nendoroid from Astro's Playroom.

Astro Bot is available now for PS5, with the first of the free DLC levels arriving on October 17, 2024.

The post Astro Bot Speedrun DLC Schedule With More Cameos Teased appeared first on Siliconera.

I imagine I am far from the only person whose earliest memories in gaming are of traversing levels in the original Super Mario Bros., followed by full 3D exploration in Super Mario 64. Outside of the occasional Nintendo title, no game captures that pure fun gaming experience these days until now with Astro Bot.

There have been a couple of Astro Bot games up until now, including in VR and the PS5 pack-in title with Astro’s Playroom, but they never quite provided the scale and experience of this title. In many ways, this is the Super Mario World to Astro Bot: Rescue Mission’s Super Mario Bros. for PlayStation.

You can absolutely pick up this title without experiencing the other games and have a wonderful time. Astro’s goal in this title is to rescue all of his bot friends across more than 50 planets in six different galaxies to explore. You do this by platforming, jumping, running, and swinging around each planetary level, complete with its own enemies, challenges, gimmicks, and style.

Without spoiling every surprise this game has to offer, one mission might have players use the power of slow motion. They do this through a casino where you can slow down certain moving parts to reach the next platform. This power adds an intriguing layer of skill and challenge beyond the usual platforming antics.

And then in another level, you might be underwater for the duration a la Jolly Roger Bay. This changes up the pace and style of movement, and puts a bit more focus on exploration. Even beyond that, there are levels involving giant sponge Astro, the highly creative elephant ability in Trunk of Funk, and switching between day and night.

ittedly, there is an intense level of linearity in most of these worlds. While it brings back the fun of Super Mario 64, it isn’t quite as open. In fact, I would liken this game more to the Super Mario 3D World side. There are the occasional slightly more open areas, but it is pretty straightforward.

You might have some branching paths occasionally but openness is a second thought. Thankfully, this isn’t as huge of a problem since each level feels so lovingly crafted. It helps that no level or gimmick overstays its welcome, either. The pacing is fantastic, as the player is constantly moving from world to world.

In addition, there are levels of varying sizes. There are the larger set-pieces like Slow-Mo Casino with numerous bots to rescue. But then you might turn around and do a challenge level, which takes a minute or two at most to complete. Astro Bot keeps players on their toes the entire time you are playing through it.

But the single greatest aspect of this title is how it affectionately pays tribute to PlayStation’s history. Astro’s Playroom toyed with the idea of crossover cameos but Astro Bot takes it to a new level. There are more than 160 different cameo bots to find throughout the galaxies.

These range from characters from first-party games like God of War to unexpected third-party surprises I won’t dare spoil here. This game pays homage to every previous PlayStation console and iconic characters in a way that feels so similar to what Nintendo did with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Beautiful moments like finding Joker from Persona 5 in the Slow-Mo Casino will stick out in my head for a long time. Team Asobi knows the PlayStation audience so well and proved that with these meaningful — not throwaway — cameos. This adds to the impressive level of polish this game has with how it runs.

Though I would prefer more open levels in the future, Astro Bot cements itself as PlayStation’s premier platforming series. This game solely brings back the golden era of PlayStation platformers like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. The sheer number of brilliant cameos show the right mix of nostalgia amidst expertly-crafted level design. If you’re looking for the purest form of video game fun but with modern mechanics, this is it.

Astro Bot is available right now exclusively for PS5.

The post Review: Astro Bot Brings Back the Golden Age of PlayStation Platformers appeared first on Siliconera.

Astro Bot Director Nicolas Doucet confirmed that more VIP bot characters will appear in the game as part a free update in 2024. This came up at the end of a brief interview with Quest Daily, during which he referenced the addition which would involve “some new VIP bots to rescue so that, you know, some characters that we didn’t include yet… would appear.” [Thanks, Quest Daily and Gematsu!]

The commentary about the planned Astro Bot free updates appear after the 6:25 mark in the video interview below. Doucet first confirmed there will be a free update involving speedruns. He referenced the ones that PS5 players did in the pack-in Astro’s Playroom game. He noted “But the challenging stuff is definitely coming” when referring to those, and confirmed leaderboards will be included. When discussing those, he mentioned the additional VIP Bots would show up in the title.

Astro Bot crossovers also came up in a recent PlayStation Blog interview. Sony talked to Doucet about VIP Bots there as well. When discussing the crossovers, he said, “Initially, I thought we could only feature around 50 characters out of the 150 characters we wanted to feature. But to our greatest surprise, the studios unanimously agreed to the cameo of all 150 characters. Apart from our PlayStation Studios, we were also lucky to collaborate with third-party publishers.”

It was suspected ahead of this announcement that more VIP Bot characters would make cameo appearances in Astro Bot ahead of this interview. When people finish the game, the end credits reference additional crossovers that aren’t currently in the game. Some of the more notable ones Shift Up, Team 17, and Ubisoft one. None of those currently appear in the game, which led those who beat it to wonder if they'd be added later.

Astro Bot is available for the PS5, and the free update that will add more crossover VIP Bot characters will arrive in 2024.

The post Free Astro Bot Crossover VIP Bot Characters Update Coming in 2024 appeared first on Siliconera.

Good Smile Company has opened pre-orders for a re-release of the Nendoroid figure of Astro from Astro's Playroom in anticipation of the Astro Bot game. The figure, priced at $42.99, is set to release in the third quarter of 2025. 

You can view the official post below:

As with other Nendoroid figures, Astro Bot comes with various accessories and customization options, including three interchangeable face plates featuring a standard expression, a playful smile, and a dizzy face. Additionally, the figure includes parts like a fuse, a coin, and laser effects for Astro’s feet, allowing fans to recreate moments from the game.

The Astro Nendoroid is a painted, non-scale, articulated figure, standing approximately 100mm (3.94 inches) tall. It is set to ship in the third quarter of 2025 and will be available for pre-order in the United States and Canada for $42.99. However, due to licensing restrictions, the figure will only ship to these two countries.

This announcement follows other Astro's Playroom merchandise, including the limited edition Astro Bot PS5 controller, set to launch alongside the game.

The new Astro Bot game will come to the PS5 on September 6, 2024. 

The post Astro Bot Nendoroid Returns As New Game Debuts  appeared first on Siliconera.

In a recent Game Watch interview, Astro Bot Lead Game Designer Hiroaki Yatoku Yatoku detailed the incorporation of VIP Bots, small robots that act as cameos for characters from classic PlayStation games, into the latest Astro Bot title. These Cameobots serve as a tribute to PlayStation's 30th anniversary, featuring characters from past titles that long-time fans will recognize. [Thanks, Game Watch!]

Yatoku explained that the process of bringing these characters into the game was smooth, with partners eager to collaborate in celebrating the console’s legacy. As players progress in the game, they can find them in levels and unlock and interact with VIP Bots via a Gacha machine, which provides tools that allow the bots to animate. 

Astro Bot cameos often include jokes or references to the original games, aiming to bridge the gap between younger and older players. Yatoku mentioned the team carefully consulted those most attached to the original games to ensure the cameos were faithful to their source material.

In related news, a limited edition Astro Bot PS5 DualSense controller has been announced by Sony, launching alongside the game. The controller, featuring Astro Bot’s signature design, has been available for pre-order since August 9, 2024.

The new Astro Bot game will come to the PS5 on September 6, 2024.

The post Astro Bot Game Cameos Explained in New Interview appeared first on Siliconera.

The PlayStation booth will make its grand return at Tokyo Game Show 2024 after a five-year absence. Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced via the Japanese PlayStation.Blog that it will set up a new booth at TGS 2024 after having its last direct appearance in 2019. The company will place numerous PS5 demo units while hosting a Death Stranding 2 talk show.

While Sony has mentioned that the booth will contain multiple PS5 game demos, there will be specific spotlights for two titles: Team Asobi's Astro Bot and Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds. The latter third-party company added that the PlayStation booth will host 40 demo units of Monster Hunter Wilds on the PS5. People who have played either demo will be able to get a bonus merchandise item themed after each game.

In addition, the TGS 2024 Sony PlayStation booth will host a special Death Stranding 2 talk show stage on Sunday, September 29, 2024, at 10:30 AM JST. Hideo Kojima will appear in the show with the Japanese voice actors Kenjiro Tsuda, Nana Mizuki, Tomokazu Sugita, and Shion Wakayama. The singer-songwriter Daichi Miura and the Danish film director Nicolas Winding Refn will complete the stage's roster. With its latest trailer published at the January 2024 State of Play, Death Stranding 2 is set for a worldwide release on the PS5 in 2025.

Tokyo Game Show 2024 will be held at Makuhari Messe on September 26-29, 2024.

The post Sony Will Return to TGS 2024 With PS5 Game Demos appeared first on Siliconera.