In the music industry, a band often uses a self-titled album years into its career to denote a reinvention. “This is who we are now” is the intended and unspoken message. PlayStation’s Astro Bot uses the same naming convention to signal a similarly fresh start. Following a 2018 VR exclusive with obviously limited reach and a 2020 game that Team Asobi’s studio head and creative director Nicolas Doucet considers a “tech demo,” 2024’s simply titled Astro Bot feels like it’s ready to launch the cutesy robot to the top of the crowded PlayStation pantheon.

“Astro’s Playroom is actually called [that] so it wouldn’t be mistaken for an Astro Bot-sized game,” Doucet told me following a demo in which I beat several levels, rescued many PlayStation characters reimagined as robots, and beat a boss in the form of a boxing cephalopod. “A lot of people actually don’t know the Astro universe outside of Astro’s Playroom, so starting [here] with the name Astro Bot ma…