One of the many draws of the PS5’s Astro Bot is its adorable cameo bots scattered across each world. The numerous PlayStation first party VIP bots were expected, but some of the third party cameos are truly surprising. It seems it was also a surprise to Team Asobi studio head Nicolas Doucet, who didn’t believe all of the cameos would make it into the final game.
How many Astro Bot cameos did the studio head think would be featured?
In an interview with Doucet, the studio head was asked about the advantages of being a PlayStation studio and how they collaborate with other first party developers. Doucet believed only 50 of the 150 characters the team pitched would make it into the final game. However, all 150 characters made it into Astro Bot.
“Since this title packs in much of PlayStation history, we worked closely with all the PlayStation Studios. When we shared our concept with the studio directors and game creators, their responses were overwhelmingly positive,” says Doucet. “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.”
With Astro Bot essentially being a celebration of PlayStation’s history, collaboration with other PlayStation Studios was imperative. However, third party publishers allowing Team Asobi to reproduce iconic characters into cute bots brings the celebration to another level. This allows mascots like Crash Bandicoot — once the poster marsupial of PlayStation, but recently acquired by Xbox via Activision Blizzard — to get the mechanical treatment.
Astro Bot’s free DLC may add even more cameos to the mix. As spotted by some eagle-eyed players, the game’s credits contain copyright notices for several games that yet to be personified. This includes Stellar Blade, Assassin’s Creed, and Beyond Good & Evil. A release date for the free DLC is not yet known, but will include speedruns, challenge missions, and more.
(Source: PlayStation Blog)
