New Astro Bot Game Might Release This Year, Says Jeff Grubb

During the latest episode of Giant Bomb's Game Mess Mornings, journalist and insider Jeff Grubb claimed that the new Astro Bot game might be released this year.

I've heard maybe Astro does happen this year. If that happens, like, that's pretty big for me. I get why Sony's probably not thinking 'that's a major one for us', at least not yet. Hopefully, they could turn it into a major one and then a lot of this changes around. But if you get above that and it's like you're talking about Ghost of Tsushima 2 or whatever that's going to be called, anything to the likes of that, those are probably waiting until next year at the earliest.

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The news might be refreshing for those PlayStation 5 fans who were disappointed when Sony announced it wouldn't release any new major franchise games in the next fiscal year. The character was previously featured in the PlayStation VR game Rescue Mission released in 2018, but became even more popular after Astro's Playroom, the PS5 tech demo available for free with the launch of the new console. Playroom was particularly impressive for its innovative usage of the DualSense controller's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, setting a benchmark for PS5 developers to follow.

In late 2020, Studio Director Nicolas Doucet confirmed more Astro Bot was on the way. In June 2021, as Team Asobi got bigger following various new hires, it sounded like the studio was developing a franchise for all ages with global appeal. The following month, new job openings hinted that the game was making a 3D action game.

In other PlayStation news, Sony Interactive Entertainment Chairman Hiroki Totoki seems interested in pursuing a more aggressive release schedule of first-party games on PC. This means PC gamers might not have to wait two to three years as they have so far.