Over 8 minutes of Astro Bot gameplay appears online


More than 8 minutes of off-screen Astro Bot gameplay has been published, showing multiple levels of the PlayStation 5 platformer in action.

The footage was captured by A9VG from ChinaJoy, which is currently being held in Shanghai. The demo showcased in the footage is the same shown to press at Summer Game Fest last month (you can read VGC’s impressions here).

Set for release in September, Astro Bot tasks players with rescuing “over 150 iconic VIP Bots inspired by legendary characters from 30 years of PlayStation history”, according to Sony.

The platformer follows Astro’s Playroom, the popular PlayStation 5 pack-in which has now been bundled with more than 60 million consoles.

Speaking to VGC last month, the series’ creative director Nicolas Doucet said it was an “honour” being potentially many children’s first foray into video games.

“It’s a very flexible IP and that’s one of the things that I love about it,” he said. “We approached with a light heart and didn’t write a backstory: we’re not precious about details too much, other than the design of the character, which needs to be respected.

“The rest is really open, and thanks to that, we can feel quite relaxed about where it’s going next.”