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Team Asobi, the developer behind Astro's Playroom, has launched a new site and revealed it is hard at work on its most ambitious game yet.
Sony decided to dissolve PlayStation's Japan studio earlier this year, leaving many wondering what would become of Team Asobi. Asobi is the developer behind Astro Bot: Rescue Mission on PlayStation VR, and the follow-up Astro's Playroom which comes free with your PS5. The silver lining to the studio being dissolved is that Team Asobi will now live on as a standalone PlayStation studio.
In fact, Asobi has launched its very own website this week, hinting at what it has planned for the future now that it is no longer a part of PlayStation's Japan studio. A statement on the new site reveals that the team at Asobi is hard at work on its most ambitious project to date. There is no hint as to what the project might be, or if it will be the third outing for Astro who is quickly becoming a firm favorite among PlayStation mascots.
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The site describes Asobi as “a new and dynamic PlayStation Studio based in vibrant Tokyo, Japan.” The launch of a new site, and confirmation that the standalone studio is working on a new project, follows on from PlayStation's removal of the Japan studio from its official site last week. The gap left empty by the dissolved studio has been filled by Team Asobi.
It also confirms the rumors that Asobi is indeed working on a new game. Since the studio has dedicated pretty much all of its time to Astro so far, the hope is that the tiny bot and its pals will be getting a fully-fledged title now that Asobi presumably has even more money behind it and a lot more sway regarding what it does next. More than Astro's Playroom which, while great, was effectively just a game created to introduce you to everything the PS5 has to offer.
The only downside to all of this is that whatever Team Asobi is working on, it's probably going to be a while before we know what it is, let alone before we have the chance to play it. Astro's Playroom isn't even a year old yet, and since the studio's next game is supposed to be bigger, better, and more ambitious, it might take a while. If it's more Astro though, and a lot of it, it'll almost definitely be worth the wait.