PlayStation used to be known for their colorful and imaginative 3D platforming mascot games. The likes of Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ape Escape, Sly Cooper, and Jak and Daxter were all what immediately came to mind when discussing gaming giant. Each game was creative, full of heart, and provided a totally unique experience. One series would focus on stealth while another would focus on exploration, and another on tricky platforming to the end of a level.

However, somewhere along the way, PlayStation sort of just stopped focusing on games like these. Crash and Spyro were no longer PlayStation exclusive franchises due to their rights shifting to other companies, but the rest were sort of just dropped by Sony quite suddenly and for no real reason. Sackboy managed to slip through the cracks outside of LittleBigPlanet, but that was four years ago now. Even their other non-platformer exclusives like PaRappa the Rapper and Twisted Metal stopped getting attention from their development teams.

Nowadays, their focus has been shifted to only releasing hyper-realistic theatrical games that usually have an over-the-shoulder camera. They’re not bad by any means. Games like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and The Last of Us are all especially fantastic. It’s just that there’s undeniably a sameness with their modern games. There’s less color, heart, and creativity, and the gameplay formulas have more similarities than PlayStation’s classic mascots. 

Because of this, it’s worth taking note that there’s finally a new, colorful, 3D platforming mascot game being released from the folks at Sony that looks incredible. This new game is Astro Bot.

Astro Bot, starring an adorable robot of the same name, is the third game in the Astro Bot series (following Astro Bot: Rescue Mission and Astro’s Playroom). The first two installments in the series were essentially demos made to show off the capabilities of the PlayStation VR and PlayStation 5 respectively. Despite being made as demos, they were still surprisingly entertaining.

Astro Bot is the first of the series that’s being made to be a great game in itself without showing off the features of a new console. It looks like it will have players jump, glide, and battle their way through unique levels, fight larger-than-life bosses, and search for plenty of hidden collectibles. In other words, it’s a clear return to form for PlayStation exclusive mascot games.

On top of that, the Astro Bot series has been known to celebrate all things PlayStation by including loads of references to their long library of first party games as well as their consoles, controllers, and other devices. It almost feels like Astro Bot might become the primary PlayStation mascot if this all goes well enough. If that’s the case, and this and future Astro games sell well enough, then perhaps it could lead to PlayStation revisiting their classic mascot franchises as well.

Perhaps Sony will see that they can gain some success with bright, stylized adventures and not just with the darker, grittier, realistic stories. Them revisiting what they used to work on, and even approaching newer titles with a similar mindset, would give fans what they’ve been clamoring for, diversify their games in both style and gameplay, and would remind everyone of what they were once capable of. Plus, having recognizable mascots outside of just Kratos and Aloy would be good for marketing.

Let’s hope that Astro Bot’s reception opens Sony’s eyes to what fans want. If it doesn’t lead to any sort of revisit of classic characters or franchises, then it would all be a massive missed opportunity.

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