Astro Bot picked up a bunch of accolades at The Game Awards, walking away with Best Family Game, Best Direction, Best Action/Adventure, and, of course, Game of The Year. The devs at Team Asobi probably expected to emerge victorious in a couple of these categories, but as some of the development team were invited back on stage time and time again, there was a mixture of shock, tears, and an appreciation that their wonderful little game had been recognised for its greatness.
While it was fantastic to see Astro Bot drowning in trophies by the end of the ceremony, it was also one of the more predictable winners. I spent the entire night naively believing that Balatro was going to walk away with the gold. The indie darling became a cult hit that found the mainstream because it perfected the beauty of simplistic game design, and showed how a single idea executed with such exuberance can take over the world.
No Game Deserved To Win More Than Astro Bot
When you stop to think about it, Astro Bot is much the same. A back-to-basics platformer made by a relatively small team who poured all they had into making the best game they could. You could argue that Metaphor: ReFantazio or Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth were grander or more ambitious, but in ways that fail to distil why so many of us love video games. And right now, I think we’re all in dire need of that reminder. The game looks and feels amazing to play, and emphasises the pure joy that comes from picking up a controller and losing yourself in another world.
Made by a team of roughly 65 people, Astro Bot was a modestly budgeted PS5 exclusive that I doubt Sony or Team Asobi expected to set the world on fire like it did. But in a year defined by high profile failures and misguided trend chasers like Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League or Concord, it was this unwavering dedication to fun and quality which allowed Astro Bot to stand out. It has only a few buttons, no live-service elements (its six post-launch levels have all been free), and feels content to let you reach the credits and walk away when you’re done.
You had a good time, and that’s what matters. I’ve played it through with friends, family, and when someone buys a PS5 for the first time, this is the one and only game I will recommend.
It defines what PlayStation used to be, and what we’d like it to be moving forward. But not just Sony’s console, most of the industry could learn valuable lessons from this adorable little robot.
Sony Must Learn From The Success Of Astro Bot
We have seen thousands of layoffs and dozens of studio closures this year alone, with years of hard work and valuable experience being thrown away because executives decided that a certain game needed to be made to capitalise on a certain trend. They were wrong, and these failures are made more abhorrent when a masterpiece like Astro Bot comes along and surpasses expectations by doing the exact opposite. It’s not only old school, but forward-thinking about how we should treat the games we play.
I’m not saying there wasn’t a corporate desire to capitalise on PlayStation nostalgia in this platformer, but it is clear Team Asobi was also free to create, experiment, and make the best game they could with no compromise. The emotion and enthusiasm of the team further supports this, as instead of communicating through PR-trained buzzwords, we saw them speak from the heart during The Game Awards.
That really matters, and Swen Vincke’s speech before Astro Bot got crowned Game of the Year was the very best prologue we could have hoped for when asking corporations to put aside their own profits and interests to trust developers to create something magical.
Astro Bot Needs To Be A Paradigm Shift For The Gaming Industry
Speaking of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Larian, the RPG picking up Game of the Year back in 2023 is a positive trend worth acknowledging. In a year when live-services were also tanking while layoffs and studio closures remained consistent, it was an early access RPG made with love, time, and dedication that captured the hearts of millions.
It won so many awards because we cared so much about its world, characters, and stories. Whenever a developer walked onto stage to collect trophies, this enthusiasm shone through. A love for creating art not in pursuit of a never-ending pile of money, but the desire to do just that – create art.
When games are made with nothing but greed in mind, their intentions are obvious, and eventually players turn against them. Astro Bot is the antithesis of that, as is Baldur’s Gate 3, and many other winners throughout the years that have sought to show us why games are so special. Corporations do not care about art or the wellbeing of developers, and there is no way to truly move forward until this system is upended.
That feels impossible, but Astro Bot picking up the most prestigious award in gaming for inadvertently fighting back against the forces threatening to destroy this medium is a good start. With any luck, its success will be a shift for triple-A gaming in its entirety, even if it only manages to gradually change the minds of studios and executives, allowing them to see that there are ways you can make incredible video games without wasting years of time and millions of dollars on a project that is destined to crash and burn. Instead, you can be like Astro Bot.
