Meet Astro Bot’s new monkey friend and go behind-the-scenes with Team Asobi

blog.playstation.com:

Hi everyone. How have you all been these last few weeks? Enjoying some holidays and some hot summer gaming, I hope!

It is my pleasure today, on behalf of the little robots of Team Asobi, to give you one more update on Astro Bot before we launch on September 6. Please check out our new trailer that unveils a few more cool features we had kept under wraps. 

Let’s start up with new worlds and new gameplay, introducing Handy-D, a cheeky monkey on Astro’s back that lets Astro climb, swing, and slam using its giant hands. This is a returning mechanic we’re taking to a fuller level by mixing it with the core platforming. 

You will also find Muteki (which means invincible in Japanese), a fitting name for Astro’s iron armor that lets him roll around spiky areas, fit inside tight spaces or get blasted like a cannonball! Finally, you’ll also catch a glimpse of Astro turning into a tiny weeny mouse which makes the world, and every surrounding stomp feel huge through the DualSense wireless controller. One of our favorites right there!

Also visible in this new trailer is the way the bots you rescue will affect the adventure. There are 300 total bots to rescue in Astro Bot, of which 150 are PlayStation cameos. We put a ton of love into animating these characters, so they re-enact funny moments from their respective games. So, no matter who your favorite PlayStation characters are, you’re bound to have a laugh with them. Once rescued, these little guys can combine to perform group actions that let you explore more of the hub planet. In the video, you can see a few of the PlayStation characters working together to make a running wall for Astro to get to higher places. 

And finally… the part that a lot of you have been wondering and asking about ever since sharing our first trailer: The hero gameplay! So, yes, at a very few key moments in the adventure, Astro will get to borrow some special abilities from some PlayStation heroes. In this video, we can see how Kratos shares the