Astro's Playroom is essentially the Wii Sports or Nintendoland of the PS5 – in the sense that it’s a tech demo on what the Dualsense controller can do. But don’t be fooled – From the same developers that brought us Ape Escape it is not surprising that Astro’s Playroom is both full of control innovations and oozing charm from every nook and cranny, despite its short length.
Premise wise, you play as Astro – the little robot that has been PlayStation’s mascot since the PS4 days, in a linear collectathon style platformer somewhere inbetween the early Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games. Controls are limited but very responsive – certain segments will shake up the control style to make use of one or more of the DualSense’s features, such as the haptic feedback triggers, the touch pad, gyro and the microphone (optional thankfully), but by and large it is a very intuitive and basic platformer harkening back to the glory days of the genre.
What makes it stand out however is that the entire world and all the levels are presented as being stored inside the Playstation itself. You have levels based in the memory, the SSD, the cooling unit, etc – and all of them are themed after one of the four previous generations of Playstation, with collectable “Artefacts” that are accessories and hardware available at the time. Everything from the original Playstation to the PSVR Headset can be found in game, including some stuff I’d never seen before. If you grew up with Playstation as I did, or are a retro hobbyist – it’s incredibly satisfying discovering these artefacts around the levels and digging them up to see what they are. Some of them are even quite well hidden in their own way – but not frustratingly so, you might have to revisit an area, but rarely will you be totally stumped where to look.
Other collectables include puzzle pieces, which when collected fill out massive posters detailing PlayStation’s history with cool artwork, and coins which can be used in a machine to win prizes, not unlike Ape Escape 2 – although with a more interactive process. These are mostly more puzzle pieces and ornaments you can look at, or occasionally artefacts and duds. There’s no way to choose what order they come out in, but if you’re like me and collect all the coins you find in every level you will be able to get all of them by playing each level twice give or take.
The titular playroom itself is full of other robots playing on the consoles or hiding in the accessories – there’s loads of neat little easter eggs if you try to use any of the consoles and controllers – sometimes it’ll just be the disc try opening, other times it’ll play that console’s startup sound, or reveal hidden robots. It’s very adorable and genuinely fun to play in.
Speaking of Easter Eggs – the robots are also dotted around the levels, sometimes cosplaying as famous PlayStation characters – I spotted Aloy, Cloud, Dante, whatshisface from God Of War (never played it, soz), what I think was a monster hunter campfire, Spike/Hikaru from Ape Escape, Sir Daniel Fortesque, the guy from Death Stranding, Pyramid Head, Sackboy, Locoroco, Solid Snake, Jill Valentine, Castlevania, Nathan Drake, Journey Laura Croft, Kazuya & Heihachi and a few others that I’m sure were unique but I didn’t recognize.
This game is full of fan service to PlayStation fans of any generation – but even if this is your first Playstation the game is decent enough on its own to hook you in and enjoy the aesthetics even if you don’t get all the references.
My favourite part of the game is the final boss – which sees you fighting the Playstation Dinosaur from the very early PS1 tech demos in rendering 3d models. It’s actually a pretty tough fight. You have some mini bosses in some of the levels, but this is the only one that truly tested your skills. It’s not a roadblock, but a satisfying challenge and a great way to round off the game. It reminds me of early Kingdom Hearts 1 bosses in which patience is of the essence but overall very doable.
The game also has a speedrun section – which provides 8 mini levels to test your speedrunning chops on. My leaderboard positions are not high, but I’m honestly happy to see these kind of things return – they’re very fun to grind at in the Crash Bandicoot gams and Tony Hawk remake.
That’s about all the game has to offer you – and for the price of £0.00 it is well worth checking out. If you’re a fan of platformers this is a solid one, if you have any nostalgia or interest in PlayStation’s history this is a gold mine, or if you just want a demonstration in what the DualSense is capable of it’s a fine example of that.
I compared this game to Wii Sports and Nintendoland at the beginning, and that is high praise. Astro’s Playroom feels like a Nintendo launch title but for a much more powerful system. It captures the same fun and wonder that you’d get from Mario 64, Luigi’s Mansion, Wii Sports, Nintendo Land…maybe not 1, 2 Switch, but the others definitely.
Astro’s Playroom is the first game I would recommend any PS5 owner trying – it’s free, and it’s genuinely great fun. Even now I’ve 100%ed it I can imagine wanting to do it all over again and maybe try and improve my speedrun scores very soon. I have very little bad to say about the game, it’s not trying to be The Last of Us or anything, and for what it is it’s perfect.
