Finding your favorite character in Astro Bot

Astro Bot is a nostalgia-driven game. Yes, it’s an excellent platformer in its own right, but it’s also tugging on the heartstrings of everyone who’s ever owned a PlayStation console. While you run, jump, climb, and skate through Astro Bot’s many planets, you find robotic versions of characters from throughout PlayStation’s history. This collectathon is at the core of every platforming challenge you navigate, and you likely have memories associated with at least a handful of the bots you rescue if you’ve ever played a PlayStation-exclusive game.

Nothing quite beats finding your favorites scattered across the galaxy. Rescuing Sly Cooper from a jail cell, where he’s presumably been placed for his kleptomaniac crimes; playing as a robotic version of God of War’s Kratos; and seeing Joel from The Last of Us labeled as a “Dependable Smuggler” who “tells the occasional white lie” are the kind of referential bits that makes Astro Bot delightful.