Sony Interactive Entertainment and Team Asobi’s upcoming 3D action platformer, Astro Bot, had a 3 year development cycle with 60 internet developers, based on the latest report.
During the latest episode of the GI Microcast on YouTube, head of GamesIndustry.biz Chris Dring mentioned that the upcoming Astro Bot took 3 years to make and that its core development team at Team Asobi is comprised of 60 people. This likely does not account for the outsourced staff that worked externally on the project.
A development cycle of 3 years sounds about right for Astro Bot. The original PSVR title, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, was developed in half of that time by a core development team of just 25 people. This was revealed by the game’s Creative Director and Producer, Nicolas Doucet, during a past interview. In addition to the doubled development time, the staff working on the upcoming title is over twice of the PSVR game.
Unlike the PS5 pack-in Astro’s Playroom, Astro Bot is a standalone, full-sized adventure that offers over 4 times the number of worlds with more than 50 planets to explore, 300 bots to rescue and dozens of new powers and features to discover. The game will not feature any kind of multiplayer component, and is a single-player experience through and through. Additionally, it does not include a PSVR2 mode.
There will be no microtransactions or in-game purchases in Astro Bot. Each planet will already have plenty of coins (in-game currency) for players to find and spend in the Gatcha Lab (in-game store for trading collectibles with coins).Players will rescue over 150 iconic VIP Bots inspired by legendary characters from 30 years of PlayStation history.
Astro Bot features a new flying vehicle known as the Dual Speeder, which the character will use to search for his Bot friends and explore regions that can’t be reached on foot, such as sky gardens, spooky graveyards, undersea cities, and scorching volcanoes. Much like in the VR original and the PS5 pack-in, players will take on over 70 new types of enemies, including massive bosses at the end of each galaxy. Furthermore, the PS5 exclusive will take advantage of every feature the DualSense controller has to offer in creative ways.
