Summary
- Sony is “planning to expand” into the family genre further given the enormous success of Astro Bot.
- Herman Hulst teased last year that PlayStation is looking to bring back “legacy IP”, so perhaps we’ll see some classic platformers return.
- Fans are holding out hope for the likes of Sly Cooper, Jak and Daxter, and Ape Escape.
Astro Bot was a huge success for PlayStation, selling over 1.5 million copies and winning Game of the Year at TGA 2024. But Sony is far from done with family games.
“In addition, the live service game Helldivers 2, which was released in February last year, won Best Ongoing Game and Best Multiplayer Game,” Sony president Hiroki Totoki said in an earnings call, as reported by VGC. “The fact that titles in genres we are planning to expand in the future, including titles for families and live service games, have received these awards, is a major stride towards building a broad title portfolio.”
Family games are one genre that Sony is “planning to expand in the future”.
Not many classic family series from Sony’s back catalogue have survived into the PS5 era. Sly Cooper, Ape Escape, and Jak and Daxter haven’t had new entries in over a decade, while PS1 icons like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon are now in the hands of Xbox, leaving only stragglers like Ratchet & Clank and Little Big Planet to carry the torch.
And I guess Knack.
Whether any of these legacies will ever return remains to be seen, but Totoki stressed that Astro Bot is “very, very important to PlayStation”.
“Deep Cut Old IP” Is Reportedly Being Brought Back
There is some hope, however. Ape Escape is back in the spotlight, not only with the dedicated Astro Bot level, but also in the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake which is bringing back the classic Ape Escape-themed mode from the original. VGC editor-in-chief Andy Robinson also teased on his podcast that Sony is “working on the deep, deep-cut old IP”, which he hinted would be “smaller games supplementing their big releases.”
PlayStation Studios boss Herman Hulst said as much in December, confirming that Sony is looking to utilise its “legacy IP”. We’ve seen classics like Sly Cooper and even the Ratchet & Clank PSP spin-offs added to PS Plus, becoming among the highest-rated games on the PlayStation Store, so there’s definitely an audience waiting for these series to return.
Maybe we’ll see new Sly Cooper and Jak games one day soon, we’ll just have to wait and see. But at least we know there’s more Astro Bot on the horizon.
- Released
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September 6, 2024
- ESRB
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E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
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Team Asobi
- Publisher(s)
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Sony Interactive Entertainment