Astro Bot head says "it's difficult to comment on" why Final Fantasy 7's Cloud didn't make a cameo

gamesradar.com:

Astro Bot is stuffed with little robot guys cosplaying as gaming icons from across PlayStation history, but the game's lead has now opened up about the one essential character that's missing.

Sure, Astro Bot's 300 collectible bots don't cover every single notable game from the platform's three-decade run. Twisted Metal and SOCOM aren't included, for example, despite being PlayStation staples for a time. But the big boys are all here. Whether that's Sony's own God of War, Ape Escape, and Shadow of the Colossus - or famous faces from other companies, like Tomb Raider and Crash Bandicoot.

Since the joyous platformer jumped onto store shelves, however, more than a few players have complained that Cloud Strife is missing, in spite of how monumentally important Final Fantasy 7 was on the PS1. In fact, publisher Square Enix has no presence in the game, with Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, and Nier all omitted, which is particularly strange since the game's free predecessor Astro's Playroom at least makes reference to Cloud's big buster sword.

In an interview with Game File, Team Asobi studio head Nicolas Doucet hinted that the development team had eyed up a Cloud cameo that never got approval from Square Enix. "It's difficult to comment on that," Doucet said. "We really respect the choice of each publisher."

Astro Bot's DLC is promising to add more VIP bots to the game - including Stellar Blade's Eve and Helldivers 2's, err, helldivers - in addition to some bonus challenge stages. But Astro Bot's credits kind of spoiled some other third-party characters coming up soon, and none of them came from Square Enix, so chances are high that we won't be seeing Bot Cloud in the game anytime soon. 

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest crossovers in Super Smash Bros, and a Nier Automata DLC coming to Stellar Blade mean that the publisher isn't totally averse to lending out its characters to other games, however, so all hope isn't lost for a future update.

Astro Bot director hopes the game's