Latest news with #AstroBot
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
PlayStation boss Hermen Hulst wants to develop Astro Bot into an enduring series, calling it one of the consoles "most exciting recent successes"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. PlayStation boss Hermen Hulst has praised Astro Bot, calling it one of PlayStation's "most exciting recent successes." Astro Bot was a breath of fresh air for Sony's first-party output which has been relegated to cinematic third-person action games for the longest time, and embodied the spirit of Japan Studio (it getting shut down is probably the biggest blunder of Sony's 2020s, if you ask me). Since then the game has become one of the most beloved platformers of all time, winning Game of the Year at the BAFTAs and The Game Awards. Sony Interactive Entertainment's business group CEO Hermen Hulst gives the game praise during a recent video presentation (via Genki_JPN). During the talk, he calls Astro Bot one of PlayStation's "most exciting recent successes." Hulst adds: "Astro Bot was a smash hit, achieving universal acclaim among players and critics and sweeping industry award shows." When speaking about growing game IP into franchises, Astro Bot is listed as an "emerging IP," hopefully meaning that we should be getting more Astro in the future, (thankfully). Hopefully the success of Astro Bot shows PlayStation the value in having franchises that don't quite fit into that prestige AAA mold or the live service world. After Japan Studio was shuttered in 2021, it meant the studio which were constantly pumping out unique games and ideas were all but gone (the studio was merged into Team Asobi). But, in an era where big Sony series are taking longer to come out (the PS5 generation will probably almost be over by the time the next Naughty Dog game releases), little games like Ape Escape, Gravity Rush, and Patapon would go down a treat. Sony is "really thoughtful" about bringing PlayStation franchises like God of War and The Last of Us off console, and PS5 games going to PC is a matter of "if", not when.
The Verge
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Astro Bot's director on making a PlayStation icon
Astro Bot is filled with whimsy and silliness that makes you want to pay attention to the details. But in a presentation at this year's Game Developers Conference, director Nicolas Doucet shared one particular aspect of Astro the robot that I hadn't noticed but blew me away. Doucet talked about how Team Asobi worked hard to give the game a good tempo with things like enemy placement and how you can interact with Astro's spaceship with the DualSense's gyro controls on loading screens. One thing that kept the momentum going was Astro himself and how he shows his impatience. Doucet showed a video of one idle animation where Astro is hopping up and down on his feet and pointing forward, almost like a little kid that's demanding you go to the playground. It's adorable — and was added 'very, very late' in development, Doucet says when I chat with him a few weeks after the presentation. While a lot of games have characters simply breathing or looking left to right while they're idle, Team Asobi thought that it could do something a little more fun. Since the game is about rescuing characters, the team started to tie the animations to the idea of looking around, Doucet says. The team even reduced the amount of time it takes for the animations to show as a way to more quickly remind the player of the goal to find the bots. Doucet thinks of this as a subliminal way to put players in the mood to move faster. Astro actually originates from a 2013 PS4 pack-in game called The Playroom that used the PS4 camera. In that game, the robot is named Asobi, but he looks a lot like the charming Astro from Astro Bot: Asobi has big blue eyes and a cute, pudgy robot body. 'Back then, the design of the character came from two angles,' Doucet says. One was that the development team didn't have much time, so they went for a simple character design instead of a human that might require a lot of facial animations. But they also picked a robot because of where it would be making its debut: a preinstalled game on (at the time) new Sony hardware. When you think about Sony or PlayStation, Doucet says that there is an 'aspiration to the future' or something 'a little bit science fiction.' Team Asobi uses the term 'techno magic.' The robot's design came from that: 'we wanted the playful fun character, but also coupled with something really cool and futuristic.' The PS5 hardware and Astro might share a lot of similarities — white plastic with black parts and blue lights — but that's an accident, Doucet says. Instead, both the character designers and hardware team were following similar values. While it's flattering to hear that people treat Astro as PlayStation's mascot, Doucet says that wasn't the design team's original intention for the character. Instead, a mascot needs to be something that 'grows naturally' and something that the users decide or feel. That happens through repeated consistency and quality, Doucet believes. In retrospect, the awards for the game — including Game of the Year at The Game Awards — are well deserved, but the goal was primarily to put platformers and family-friendly games back on the map and release 'as good a game as we can.' Doucet used to look at renowned PlayStation studios like Naughty Dog (Uncharted, The Last of Us) and Santa Monica Studio (God of War), and think they knew some kind of 'black magic' that Team Asobi didn't. But following Astro Bot, the takeaway was that 'actually, it became the sum of lots of small things that are carefully made.' If the team keeps that consistency and makes sure that 'every bit' of the game is done as well as possible, then 'the sum of it ends up being high quality.' No wonder Astro is impatient to explore.
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Blood Message trailer: A reflection of Black Myth Wukong and Ghost of Tsushima, NetEase announces first single-player game
After the exciting PlayStation State of Play event, which announced upcoming games like Astro Bot, First Steps, Ghost of Yotei, 007 First Light, and Nioh 3, among others, another enticing development is taking place in the world of gaming. Developers NetEase Games and 24 Entertainment have just announced a single-player action game titled Blood Message and dropped a 5-minute trailer. This will be NetEase's first ever single-player game. The game is set in the final years of the legendary Tang dynasty of China and follows the story of a nameless protagonist during the 'Dunhuang uprising'. The trailer opens with a shot of our protagonist wading through the desert while a voice in the background talks about the demise of the Tang dynasty. The game most likely is making a reference to the time when the dynasty weakened and lost control of the region of Dunhuang, which was a focal point of communication between China and the rest of the world. The region was fought over many times, and the story of the game seems to be set during one of those rebellions. We see our protagonist trying to rescue his son from the city before the war destroys it. He soon discovers that his son has decided to travel to the Tang capital as part of another uprising. ALSO READ: Call of Duty Black Ops 7 teaser: David Mason will battle fear itself to save a world on the brink of chaos. Watch From here the main narrative of the game begins, as we see a glimpse of the fight sequences and the overall world the story is set in. Some movements of the main character seem a bit like Assassin's Creed and Ghost of Tsushima, while the underlying presence of spirituality and belief in a higher someone reminds the viewer of the game Black Myth: Wukong, another game with Buddhist and Taoist folklore rooted deep within its story. The developers have already revealed that even though the game will feature an expansive world, the story in itself is linear in nature. Linear essentially means that while the players will have certain choices which can affect certain outcomes, the overall structure of the game shall remain fixed. No announcements about the release date have been made yet, and NetEase has not informed the audience about the consoles the game will be available on.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
What Happened With PS5 Exclusives This Generation?
The Last of Us Part 2 In a recent, large-scale report on the state of the company and brand, Sony said that the upcoming PlayStation 6 was 'top of mind' for the company, with some estimates putting it at a potential 2027 release date. But that raises a question. Despite its solid sales, was this…actually a good generation for PlayStation, namely its PS5 exclusives? It's been a strange generation. The concept of 'true' PS5 exclusives, ones maximizing the power of the new system without being cross-gen with PS4 at the same time, has been limited. We might as well start with what's arguably the biggest success, at least critically, PlayStation's most Nintendo-like game, Astro Bot. The GOTY winner was in fact PS5-only, and was a celebration of PlayStation itself. Fantastic! Moving on from there, we have a pair of Final Fantasy games, First, XVI, where there's some debate about whether that underperformed, and now it's no longer exclusive to PS5 at all, having hit Xbox. The other is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the next installment after Remake, which was a PS4 launch game, putting it in a weird space. Final Fantasy XVI You can count the Demon's Souls remake, but that is, of course, a remake. Ratchet and Clank was a solid, if not overlooked, demonstration of PS5 tech in a way practically no other games utilized. Returnal is a bit of a cult favorite among some at this point but did not sell terribly well. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder One of the most successful PS5-only games was Stellar Blade, from a studio and IP Sony doesn't even own, but credit to them for seeing the potential and landing that deal. Helldivers 2 was a huge hit, but it had a day-and-date release on PC, where Steam was the larger platform for the game. Finally, we have the most 'major' release to date, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which tripled the cost of the first game arguably without being significantly better, reusing large chunks of the old city and adding a character that was already added in a previous side-game. Projects like a Venom spin-off and a Spider-Verse multiplayer game were cancelled. Thankfully, we have Ghost of Yotei, PS5 only, out this fall. I would not be surprised if that ended up being the best non-Astro Bot PS5 exclusive. Hopefully, at least. Ghost of Yotei I listed a decent amount of games there, yes. But how many games of true significance? Taking a step back, this entire generation, we did not see a PS5-only game from Guerilla, Sony Santa Monica or Naughty Dog, the last of which became a meme for its endless remasters of its Last of Us games. Naughty Dog has announced Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, but that may not be out until PS6 itself. We have no idea when either new Horizon or God of War games are coming from those studios, much less them branching into potentially new IPs instead of endless sequels. Sony purchased Bungie this generation for $3.6 billion, but it did little except drift on with Destiny 2 and hammer away at a game that seems on the verge of bombing, Marathon. And neither of those games are exclusive, much less PS5-exclusive. It's not like there was nothing to play, but true PS5 exclusives were few and far between, and it's a situation where the most significant introduction of a new IP was Stellar Blade, not even a game from Sony directly, merely a deal it had secured. The same goes for Final Fantasy, where Square Enix seems to now be realizing locking themselves to PlayStation this tightly may be a sales mistake. None of this is to say that Xbox, in contrast, had some great console generation. I've devoted a lot of ink to its collapsed hardware sales, and the concept of an Xbox exclusive is close to not existing at all now. But if we're comparing the PS5 to past eras, I'd probably rank it fourth or even fifth in terms of what it has produced in terms of true exclusives. We'll see if the PS6 can change that, whenever it arrives. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sony藉「State of Play」直播節目公布諸多新作，包含《宇宙機器人》免費更新內容、《仁王3》等
Sony稍早藉由「State of Play」直播節目公布諸多遊戲新作，同時也連同CAPCOM、光榮特庫摩、萬代南夢宮、KONAMI、IO Interactive等遊戲業者公布多款即將登上PlayStation 5平台的遊戲作品。 其中，Sucker Punch透露將於今年7月以聚焦《羊蹄山戰鬼》 (Ghost of Yōtei)的特別節目，詳細說明此款遊戲作品具體特色，而遊戲已經在日前確定將於10月2日正式推出。 Team Asobi則宣布其《宇宙機器人》 (Astro Bot)將於7月10日釋出全新免費更新內容，預計加入五個來自「邪惡虛空宇宙」 (Vicious Void Galaxy)的全新挑戰關卡，並且預計會有全新「特殊機器人」 (Special Bots)登場。 另外，PlayStation Studios更宣布與Arc System Works、Marvel Games攜手合作，推出全新4對4團隊對戰格鬥遊戲《漫威鬥魂》 (MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls)，預計會2026年推出，分別將登上PlayStation 5、Steam及Epic Games Store平台。 • 《羊蹄山戰鬼》將於7月播出專屬節目 • 《宇宙機器人》 7月推出全新五大關卡 • 《漫威鬥魂》2026年登場 • 《沉默之丘 f》確定9月25日上市 • 《潛龍諜影 Delta：食蛇者》實機遊玩預告片 • 《虛實萬象》 (Pragmata)確定2026年上市 • 《仁王 3》正式發表 • 《數碼寶貝物語 時空異客》將於10月3日推出 • 《Final Fantasy 戰略版：伊瓦利斯編年史》將於9月底推出 • 經典電音方塊遊戲新作《Lumines Arise》 • 須田剛一帶領開發最新作《死人羅密歐》 • 經典諜報動作題材改編遊戲《007 曙光初現》 • 《血咒之城：緋紅之誓》由飯田周太郎、五十嵐孝司共同開發 • 《全民高爾夫 環球之旅》將在9月4日發售 • 《Sword of the Sea》將於8月19日登上PlayStation 5 • 《Sea of Remnants》 • 《Tides of Tomorrow》 • 《Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow》 • 《Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection》 • 《Cairn》 • 《Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound》 • 《Hirogami》 • 《Baby Steps》 更多 Qualcomm宣布完成收購以色列車用安全晶片設計業者Autotalks Sony在台推出 2025 年度全新 BRAVIA 系列電視機種，區分BRAVIA 5系列與入門款 BRAVIA 2 II系列 一加正式揭曉小尺寸旗艦手機OnePlus 13s，搭載可自訂功能的Plus Key按鍵、更多AI功能
