More Astro Bot Is Coming To PS5 Players Starting Right Now
Who’s the fastest bot?
The Game of the Year at 2024’s Game Awards just got a little bigger. As of February 13, a new update for Astro Bot is live, adding a set of new levels and bots to rescue in the acclaimed platformer starting today.
Developer Team Asobi announced the update on the PlayStation Blog. For the next five weeks, Astro Bot will receive one new level each Thursday, starting with today’s addition of one Tick-Tock Shock. According to Team Asobi director Nicolas Doucet, the five new levels heading to Astro Bot are meant to provide a greater challenge, unlike the Winter Wonder level in the game’s last update, which he calls “a walk through the Xmas park.”
Team Asobi’s Astro Bot is getting a second batch of challenge levels starting in February.
Every one of the five new levels has its own Special Bot — those modeled after characters from classic PlayStation games — and completing them will unlock a Time Attack mode for each, complete with an online leaderboard to track your performance against the rest of the game’s community.
Here’s the full list of levels being added for the update, whose names give us a hint for what to expect:
- Feb 13: Tick-Tock Shock
- Feb 20: Thrust or Bust
- Feb 27: Cock-A-Doodle-Doom
- Mar 6: Hard to Bear
- Mar 13: Armored Hardcore
Team Asobi hasn’t revealed exactly what will be present in the new levels, which will only be revealed as they go live. That makes this the second batch of mystery levels Team Asobi has added to Astro Bot, after a batch of new additions that was released on a similar timed basis beginning in October 2024. Like those levels, the newest additions to Astro Bot will be totally free for anyone who owns the game. The last free level pack featured plenty of challenge and produced some excellent speedrunning competition, so there should be more of that to look forward to this time around.
Along with the fresh batch of levels, Astro Bot is also getting an update on PS5 Pro, which allows it to be played at the highest resolution at a solid 60 frames per second.
The new levels will include a speedrun mode with online leaderboards.
Astro Bot was a huge hit for PlayStation last year, and the announcement of its new levels comes just after Sony revealed what it’s learning from that success. In a February 13 earnings call, company president Hiroki Totoki told investors that the reception to Astro Bot affirms an existing plan to release more family-friendly games in the future, according to VGC.
“At The Game Awards 2024, our first-party title Astro Bot won four categories, including Game of the Year and Best Family Game — the most of any title,” Totoki said.
“In addition, the live-service game Helldivers 2, which was released in February last year, won Best Ongoing Game and Best Multiplayer Game awards. 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.”
Sony says it’s hoping to follow the success of Astro Bot with more family games.
Sony’s push to release more live-service titles is already well known, though it’s run into quite a few stumbling blocks recently. The suggestion that it’s prioritizing more family games is more surprising. Its recent State of Play showcase certainly didn't give that impression, full as it was of shooters and other action games.
But given the ongoing success of Astro Bot, it’s easy to see why Sony would be pivoting to family games at this point. Astro Bot was honored at the New York Game Awards in addition to December’s Game Awards, and it’s been nominated for the upcoming DICE and GDC Awards as well. Its success has seemingly been enough to shift PlayStation’s strategy going forward, and in the meantime, fans have a bit more of one of 2024’s most celebrated games to anticipate.
