Astro Bot Rescue Mission

Astro Bot Rescue Mission
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio (Team Asobi)
Publisher	Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform	PlayStation VR
Device	PlayStation VR
Operating System	PlayStation 4
Type	Game
Genre	Platformer
Input Device	DualShock 4 (motion tracked)
Play Area	Seated, Standing
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	October 2, 2018
Price	US $39.99 (launch)
App Store	PlayStation Store

Property "Developer" (as page type) with input value "Sony]] Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio (Team Asobi)" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.

See also: VR Apps

Astro Bot Rescue Mission is a 2018 virtual reality platform game developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio's Team Asobi and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was released for PlayStation VR on the PlayStation 4 on October 2, 2018, and requires the headset and a motion-tracked DualShock 4 controller to play.

The player controls the robot Astro across a series of stages spread over five worlds, using head and body movement together with the controller to navigate the environment and uncover hidden areas. Road to VR awarded it 10 out of 10, the publication's first perfect score since the launch of PlayStation VR almost two years earlier. As of July 2019 it was the highest-rated VR game on Metacritic, where it holds a score of 90 out of 100. It won Best VR/AR Game at The Game Awards 2018.

Gameplay

Astro Bot Rescue Mission is a third-person platformer played entirely in VR. The player views the action through the PlayStation VR headset and is treated as a presence in the scene rather than a fixed camera: levels are built so that platforms run far below, high overhead, and all around the player, who must lean and turn their head to see around obstacles and find hidden routes. Astro himself is moved with the analog stick and buttons in the manner of a conventional platformer, including running, jumping, and a hover.

The DualShock 4 controller is tracked in space and represented on screen as an object the player holds. Gadgets attach to this virtual controller and give it functions that the player aims directly with their hands, such as a grappling hook to pull Astro up to higher ledges, a water gun, and a shuriken launcher. The headset and the player's body are also part of the mechanics: the player smashes obstacles by leaning the in-game viewpoint into them, and dodges attacks aimed at their own head. The game follows a structure familiar from console platformers, with stages spread across five worlds, hidden robots to collect in each stage, optional challenge stages unlocked by finding camouflaged chameleons, and a boss at the end of each world.

Development

The game was made by Team Asobi, a group within Sony's Japan Studio led by creative director and producer Nicolas Doucet. It grew out of Robot Rescue, a minigame in the 2016 PlayStation VR title The Playroom VR, which itself featured robot characters introduced in the 2013 PlayStation 4 application The Playroom. Player requests and feedback after The Playroom VR prompted the team to expand the minigame into a full release.

Doucet has said the team did not want to drop a traditional platformer into VR unchanged, describing a deliberate effort to avoid a "panorama view" platformer and instead build the design around VR-specific ideas such as verticality, depth, leaning, and physical interactions using the player's head. Production ran about 18 months with a peak team of roughly 25 people, and the studio spent around a third of that time prototyping mechanics before committing to final designs and art.

Release

Platform	Region	Release date
PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4)	Worldwide	October 2, 2018
PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4)	Japan	October 4, 2018

The game launched as a PlayStation VR exclusive at a retail price of US $39.99 and was sold through the PlayStation Store and at retail.

Reception

Astro Bot Rescue Mission received broadly positive reviews. On Metacritic it holds a score of 90 out of 100, and was the highest-rated VR game on the site as of July 2019. The review aggregator OpenCritic lists a top critic average of 89 from 55 critics, with 92 percent of critics recommending the game.

Road to VR's Ben Lang scored it 10 out of 10, the site's first perfect score since PlayStation VR launched nearly two years earlier, writing that the game "expertly executes every idea it brings to the table" and "plays to the platform's strengths while avoiding its weaknesses." Push Square's Sammy Barker gave it 9 out of 10 and called it "the closest thing you'll get to a Nintendo platformer on a PlayStation platform." UploadVR's Jamie Feltham described it as a demonstration that third-person VR "can be just as powerful as the best first-person experiences." IGN and Game Informer each scored the game 9 out of 10. Sony's own PlayStation.Blog named it an Editors' Choice for 2018 and called it "an essential PS VR game."

The game won Best VR/AR Game at The Game Awards 2018, ahead of nominees including Beat Saber, Moss, Tetris Effect, and Firewall Zero Hour.

Legacy

Astro Bot Rescue Mission is the first standalone Astro Bot game, following the Robot Rescue minigame in The Playroom VR. Team Asobi later made Astro's Playroom (2020), a non-VR title bundled with the PlayStation 5, and Astro Bot (2024), a non-VR PlayStation 5 platformer; both were directed under Doucet, who became head of the studio.