With the PlayStation 5 available for almost nine months now, the list of standout titles for the platform is slowly growing longer and longer, especially with major exclusives such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal, and major third-party titles like Resident Evil: Village. One unexpected title that has still managed to win fans' hearts over is Astro's Playroom, the game that came installed with every PlayStation 5 console at launch. With the success of Astro's Playroom, developer Team Asobi has opened its new studio, revealing that its next game will be its most ambitious project yet.
Astro's Playroom's roots run all the way back to the PlayStation 4's launch, with the system launching in 2013 with a built-in application known as The Playroom, also developed by Team Asobi, which was initially a division of Sony's Japan Studio. The Playroom was made to demonstrate the PlayStation Camera and DualShock 4. The robots featured in The Playroom went on to inspire Astro Bot, the character who made his debut in the 2018 PlayStation VR title Astro Bot: Rescue Mission. The success of this title went on to inspire Astro's Playroom, which demonstrated the PS5's features in 4 unique levels referencing the history of PlayStation.
Shortly after Astro's Playroom released in 2020 it was revealed that Team Asobi's parent, Japan Studio, would be restructured around its subsidiary as it begun development of its next game. Team Asobi also confirmed that Astro would return in a PlayStation Blog post shortly after the game's release. Now, an official website dedicated to Team Asobi has launched highlighting the titles it has developed while also advertising jobs currently available at the Tokyo studio. The studio has described its current project as its "most ambitious game yet!" Team Asobi and Polyphony Digital, the studio behind the Gran Turismo series, are the only two Japanese studios that are part of PlayStation Studios.
It's unclear whether Team Asobi's next title will return the VR style of Astro Bot: Rescue Mission or stick to Astro's Playroom's open 3D platforming style. With the next generation of PlayStation VR slated to release next year, it's entirely possible that the studio could be hard at work at the first major game intended to demonstrate the hardware's power just as it did with the original PSVR and PS5 before it. We could see the title teased at Sony's next games showcase, which is rumored to take place later this month, however it may be too early as Astro's Playroom only released almost nine months ago.
Astro's Playroom is available now exclusively for PlayStation 5.