Team Asobi is a strange studio. Once part of Japan Studio, it has now spun off into its own thing (despite still being owned by Sony) and has four very successful games under its belt - although you could make the argument it’s yet to make an actual video game at all. These four games are The Playroom, The Playroom VR, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, and Astro’s Playroom. They’re wonderful experiences, but are they really video games in the way we typically discuss them? Are they not tech demos, there to showcase what actual video games can do with the technology in front of them?
The truth is, they’re a little bit of both. I wrote a while ago that Astro’s Playroom felt like the only genuine PS5 experience I’d had in half a year of owning the console, but since then Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has stepped up to the plate. Astro’s Playroom, the pick of Asobi’s offerings so far, is a fantastic achievement, but it’s also very clearly shaped by the need to be a tech demo. There’s a section where we need to pilot a hang-glider using the DualSense’s gyro controls, another where we need to flick the controller back and forth to operate a robot monkey suit, and a third where we use the touchpad to maneuver giant marble on glass. We even need to blow directly into the DualSense at times. These are all fun enough features, because we understand the game for what it is - it’s designed to show off everything the PS5 can do without feeling like a tutorial, and it delivers on that.
In its own way, Astro’s Playroom is a great game. I completed it, then went back and did all the time trials and extra secrets to get the Platinum. But it’s painfully clear that half of the features are in there because they need to be. Does that marble section, where the surface swaps from tarmac to wood to grass to glass, add anything tangible to the experience? Or is it there because the game needed something to show off the improved touchpad and the influence different surfaces had on motion, haptics, and sound?
This is why Team Asobi's new game is such an exciting prospect. Though yet to be officially unveiled, a job listing for a level designer reveals the studio is working on a 3D action game with "great tempo and creative situations." While this doesn't explicitly state that the game is an Astro Bot game, that feels like a pretty good bet. Even if it isn't though, if it's some new IP with a new character, it will be the first time we see Team Asobi off the leash. We might see some controller gimmicks, but they'll be there because the developer wants them there.
You get the feeling that, with Astro's Playroom, Sony handed Team Asobi a list of things labelled 'Put this stuff in the game'. On this list, you had the gyro controls, the touchpad blowing, the haptic feedback, the adaptive triggers, and so on. Team Asobi then got its collective heads together and decided how to include each feature in an inventive way while still telling a coherent story. As for the adventure into the different parts of the console itself, and the various Sony Easter eggs, I imagine that was a big picture idea from Sony and Team Asobi came up with all the details. On this new game, whether it's Astro Bot or not, there is no list from Sony. It's all Team Asobi, and I can't wait to see where the team goes with that freedom.
I mentioned Ratchet & Clank earlier, and that's important. You can only do so much with a shooter game - after a while, they all become far too similar. Platformers, more than any other genre, are built on creativity. They need to bring a new idea, a new trick, a new joke, to practically every level. They need to be distinct from their competitors yet familiar to newcomers, and they need to constantly reinvent themselves while remaining cohesive. Astro's Playroom does that perfectly, even when it's held back by the need to fit 17 different gimmicks in there for no other reason besides showing off. Four projects in, the studio has earned the right to take a risk. Everything in Team Asobi's history suggests it will pay off.