[Stephen Totillo] How PlayStation engineered its next great game (Astro Bot)

[Remember_Spinal]

Some interesting details here:


Nicholas Doucet early career

In the early 2000s, before he joined PlayStation, Doucet worked on Lego video games, a career he wasn’t initially thrilled about.

“The day I actually entered Lego, I remember being a little bit disappointed at the time. I was like 20 or 21. And I was thinking, ‘I want to work on kind of hardcore games.’”

He was a young man enjoying the likes of Metal Gear Solid and here he was about to work on Lego Rock Raiders and Lego Alpha Team for the original PlayStation and Game Boy Color. Not quite as cool, he figured.

As he did the work, he warmed to it, because he realized how impactful it could be.

“I started to have quite a lot of pleasure watching the reaction of kids and audiences that just never touched video games,” he said.

1 year of prototyping & studio-wide play sessions every 2 weeks

There's a big chunk of time that is ring-fenced for prototyping, Doucet said.

He estimates that, for Astro Bot, Team Asobi probably spent about “one year prototyping, one year in production, turning all of these prototypes into the game, and then one year polishing.”

“We have two-week cycles where we prototype very rapidly lots of mechanics. We get together every two weeks and everybody plays the game.

“We have a kind of studio value that is playful,” he said. “And it means that we really want to treat the game as a toy as well as a game.”

The studio's DualSense 2.0 team's quest for controller-based gameplay ideas

After the 2020 release of Astro’s Playroom, Team Asobi assembled a three- or four-person “DualSense 2.0” team to concoct new gameplay ideas that’d make use of the controller. Some of that work, including the aforementioned sponge concept, are going into Astro Bot. There’s also a mechanic where Astro can run his hand along a wall to find a secret, based on the relative roughness or smoothness of the controller’s haptic feedback. (Doucet said they use that concept just a few times in the game: “We don't want to overdo it.”)

Getting vintage hardware into Astro's Playroom

Astro Bot’s nostalgia is focused on some 150 PlayStation-inspired character cameos (among 300 collectible bots). The PS5 itself is rendered as a spaceship for Astro to use, the PS5 controller is a glider. The previous game, Astro’s Playroom, included virtual versions of dozens of PlayStation consoles and peripherals, an idea not being replicated this time. About that virtual gear, Doucet said some of the source material scanned into the game was from his personal collection, some the team had to find and buy. More recent devices were rendered based on Sony’s own industrial data.

Why Team Asobi's boss was thanked in the Stellar Blade credits

Doucet is thanked in the credits of two other 2025 PlayStation exclusives, the externally-developed but Sony-published Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade. Doucet recalls his team sharing insights about the PS5 controller’s haptics with the Stellar Blade team. Also: “We are all like one big group, and we do comment and play each other's builds.”

How PlayStation engineered its next great game

The making of Astro Bot and the "love story" it's part of. Plus: Details on Sony's other big 2024 family game, Lego Horizon Adventures.

www.gamefile.news

 

[Jim Ryan]

There's something magic going on at Team Asobi.... they seem to really know gameplay and what makes a game great.

 

[anonpuffs]

Get him in charge of naughty dog stat

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Get him in charge of naughty dog stat

Hehehe

 

[Entropi]

Get him in charge of naughty dog stat

This guy is the polar opposite of Druckman (I don't mean that in a negative way, only on how they approach story/gameplay).

A very refreshing feel for PlayStation as a whole.

 

[anonpuffs]

This guy is the polar opposite of Druckman (I don't mean that in a negative way, only on how they approach story/gameplay).

A very refreshing feel for PlayStation as a whole.

"We don't use the word fun"

 

[Entropi]

"We don't use the word fun"

Exactly lol

 

[JAHGamer]

My most anticipated game, looks like it'll be the best platformer since Mario Galaxy. And if Mario Wonder can be a goty nominee, this game should be a shoe in.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

"We don't use the word fun"

Yet, people continue to act as if the sky is falling because they haven’t announced their new game lol

 

[PropellerEar]

Everything I hear about this game makes me even more HYPED!

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I have to confess I was a bit let down when news appeared claiming the game would only be 4x parger than Astro's Playroom.
Upon closer inspection, what they actually say is the game has 4x more worlds, so I'm still expecting it to be over 4x bigger than Playroom.

 

[Petekilla]

My most anticipated game, looks like it'll be the best platformer since Mario Galaxy. And if Mario Wonder can be a goty nominee, this game should be a shoe in.

The question is will it review similarly?

 

[JAHGamer]

The question is will it review similarly?

idk but if it's a great platformer and they review it poorly, then it will expose a lot of hypocrites in the media that complain about Sony only making 3rd person cinematic narrative driven games. To me, Mario Wonder was never as good as everyone made it out to be. It was a great game but not a top 6 game of 2023....

 

[YeezyDude]

Awesome to hear!

This is indeed a game I'll pre-order before its release!

 

[Petekilla]

Salty.