Ignoring Astro's Playroom on the basis of it being a tech demo is a mistake. While it can easily be completed in under three hours, it's an endearing 3D platformer that has a mastery over aesthetic and mechanics that also shows why the DualSense is innovative. More than that though, it's also a beautiful tribute to the history of PlayStation, operating on a level that few games could hope to achieve. From its in-game nods to item descriptions to trophy names, Astro's Playroom breathes PlayStation.
Bringing the PlayStation 5 to Life
An over-reliance on nostalgia can be a potent negative, but that comes down to execution. Astro executes on its vision elegantly. The excellence of its homages come from the fact that they all feel in-universe. It all begins as the player starts Astro's Playroom and recognizes that the game takes place literally within a PlayStation 5. From GPU Jungle to SSD Speedway, Astro's Playroom serves as a tour of the machine's internals in a lighthearted way. It's this playful riff on the PlayStation 5 itself that makes its referential, nostalgic aspects feel organic.
Setting the game inside the console establishes that the celebration of PlayStation is central to Astro's design. It lays the foundation for a game world that literally brings the PlayStation universe to life in fun and thoughtful ways. Since the entire game is framed around animating PlayStation in an imaginative way, its references never feel out of place.
The game is all about paying respect to the characters, worlds and platforms that players love. The Astro Bots that inhabit this world are just as committed to the ideas of play and imagination as the fans are. This shows, as the four core areas of Astro's Playroom are full of Bots acting out their favorite PlayStation and PlayStation-related games.
Celebrating Nostalgia the Right Way
Astro's Playroom's nostalgic moments are so numerous that they're hard to count, and half the fun is experiencing them first-hand. In Cooling Springs, the player will find two Astro Bots in a toy boat off the shore of the beach dressed as Kratos and Atreus. In GPU Jungle, the player will find a group of Astro Bots huddled around a campfire dressed in full hunting gear playing Monster Hunter on their PSPs.
These are great, but it's even more engaging to see how Team ASOBI managed to pay homage to the most mature titles. From humorous riffs on The Last of Us to Silent Hill, these are constantly memorable and charming. Then, there are the references made to even the most forgotten IP. From Patapon to Loco Roco to The Order: 1886 to even more obscure fare, everything has a chance to shine. But even though these references are around every corner, they never become cheap or tiresome.
Astro's Playroom isn't interested in just flashing familiar touchstones in front of the player's eyes to score easy points. Every reference is important, and ASOBI made one each deliberate and creative. Plus, these references are just so cute. The player never gets the sense that this nostalgia is exploitative, but instead the product of adoration from a developer is just as much of a PlayStation fan as the audience.
These references are a genuine extension of the game's top-to-bottom commitment to literally bringing the player inside the world of PlayStation. This is before even mentioning the tongue-in-cheek trophy names, artifact descriptions and environmental details that highlight PlayStation's legacy. There is way too much to discuss everything, which illustrates how robust ASOBI's attention to detail is. Astro's Playroom is nothing short of an overflowing of fandom in the purest form.
The way Astro's Playroom handles nostalgia and legacy content feel refreshing. Companies continue to mine the well of nostalgia at the most surface level to the point where simply seeing something old and sentimental isn't enough anymore. The appeal is getting transparent, as it becomes increasingly obvious that nostalgia and legacy content are marketing gimmicks. But when a game steps beyond nostalgia's base-level appeal as Astro's Playroom does and thoughtfully revisits the past, it becomes celebratory and engaging once again.