The Ape Escape themed level in Sony Interactive Entertainment and Team Asobi’s 3D platformer, Astro Bot, was developed by the original creators of the series.
During an interview with Famitsu, the development team at Team Asobi was asked about thought-process that went into the selection and creation of levels based on classic PlayStation franchises such as Ape Escape and God of War. In response, Kohei Kawa, Senior Animator at the studio shared that he has a special attachment to Ape Escape, as he was deeply involved with the series in the past.
When Kawa first heard about the studio’s decision to feature an Ape Escape themed level as a Hero Stage in Astro Bot, he was overwhelmed with excitement. When digitizing Pipo-Monkey, he used 3D model data he had previously saved as reference. According to him, the shape of Pipo-Monkey’s face was established around the time of Ape Escape 3’s development, and it has served as the basis ever since. The version that appears in Astro Bot uses reference data from the same 3D model, so the lineage of the Ape Escape series is retained.
In addition, Kawa revealed that the stages and actions performed by Pipo-Money were created by a game designer who had previously worked on the Ape Escape series. The developer studied character behavior, the feeling of catching monkeys, and the level design in prior entries before creating the Ape Escape themed Hero stage in Team Asobi’s 3D platformer.
As a fan of the original work, Kawa expressed that he was very happy to see the faithful recreation of elements from the Ape Escape series in Astro Bot. Given that the series built a fan-following in the 20 or so year since its inception, he understands why the the Hero stage themed after it has had a high completion rate.
The award-winning Astro Bot is available exclusively for PlayStation 5.
