PlayStation needs more games like Astro Bot and Lego Horizon Adventures

After just 15 minutes of playing with the cute and cleverly designed Astro bot on PlayStation 5 as part of a Sony preview event earlier in July, I thought to myself, “Why aren’t there more PlayStation games like this?”

My first reaction to Astro bot is meant as a compliment to developer Team Asobi, the Tokyo-based team behind the equally great Astro Bot: Rescue Mission And Astro’s playroomwhich Astro bot builds on.

Like Astro’s previous games, I played as the shiny white-and-blue robot who can jump, punch, and shoot beams from his feet, which act like jet engines. On the various planets I visit, I acquire power-ups that give Astro different abilities, allowing him to glide through the air, deliver long punches, or burst through walls. Astro’s abilities aren’t complicated, but the cleverly designed levels in Astro’s games are full of blind spots that hide secrets and paths leading to collectible trinkets.

I ended up spending 45 minutes with the new one Astro bot game, scratching the itch of knowing there were hidden goodies and cleverly hidden robots to rescue. I walked away, elated by what Team Asobi had created: a blue-sky game with bright yellow suns that felt like I was playing with a shiny new toy. Nearly everything I interacted with—giant inflatable ducks, pink-leafed trees, a robotic stingray—responded pleasantly to my touch. I unzipped a large octopus balloon and found a glowing treasure inside that allowed Astro himself to turn into an inflated balloon. I hopped on that swimming stingray bot and my character did a little surfing pose. I punched a giant octopus boss with a pair of spring-loaded boxing gloves. Classic video game stuff that I’ll be looking forward to playing more of when the game comes out in September.

Astro bot also felt familiar right away. Controlling Astro in his new game feels almost identical to the Astro’s playroom that came with the PS5. Just like that free launch coupon, Astro bot shows what the DualSense controller can do, rumbling softly or strongly depending on the action happening on screen, and believable force feedback on the controller’s triggers when firing a weapon or throwing a punch. When Astro flies in a DualSense-shaped spaceship, tilting the controller left and right rolls the ship in those directions. Every action and bit of accompanying feedback feels carefully crafted.

Image: Team Asobi/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Nicolas Doucet, head of Team Asobi, recently said Game file that his studio “really wants to treat the game as a toy and as a game.” That philosophy comes through in so many moments of Astro bot — the game encourages you to experiment, touch and turn around to see if you missed anything on your journey.

Those same sentiments are also evident in another game from Sony Interactive Entertainment coming later this year: Lego Horizon Adventures from Guerrilla Games and Studio Gobo. Their kid-friendly, Lego version of the Teen-rated Horizon Zero Dawn has the same premise and characters as that post-post-apocalyptic game, but wraps it up in The Lego Movie Humour.

Like it Astro bot, Lego Horizon Adventures is gorgeous, but in different ways. It presents the futuristic wilderness of the Horizon games as made entirely of Lego bricks, and with an incredible amount of detail. When characters like the heroine Aloy and her ally Erend appear onscreen, reimagined as Lego minifigures, you can see the light scuffs on their paint jobs and the seams that slice through their molded plastic bodies. Yet they’re full of expressive emotion, and the absurdity of seeing the people of Aloy’s warrior tribe as tiny Lego people enhances the game’s humor. Lego Horizon Adventures is very funny, as the characters joke about their strange Lego hands and break the fourth wall to reflect on the strangeness of their situation.

Image: Gobo Studio, Guerrilla Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Because of that style of humor, Lego Horizon Adventures is perhaps ultimately my favorite way to tell the story of Horizon Zero Dawn —a hilarious, sharply rendered version of a very serious story (which, uh, is also about robot dinosaurs).

I first made my demo of Lego Horizon Adventures solo, learning the simple but tight controls, collecting items, and building Lego structures as I journeyed through an early level. I fought Lego versions of mechanical wild animals using a variety of tactics: shooting arrows through campfires to unleash flaming shots, and throwing exploding barrels at my enemies. Everything moved at a brisk pace, with simplified platforming and traversal.

For the second half of my demo, I played local, same-screen co-op with a Sony representative. That experience emphasized that Lego Horizon Adventures is best played with a partner, child, or parent, where two people can explore a wider range of combat tactics together – or one player can guide the other through something slightly difficult.

Image: Gobo Studio, Guerrilla Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment

The events of Horizon Zero Dawn may feel silly to veterans of the franchise, but revisiting the story with a new angle (and with a co-op partner) might be reason enough to do so. But for me, the humor of Lego Horizon Adventures was the best reason. With much of the original voice cast reprising their roles, now allowed to be extremely silly with it, Lego Horizon Adventures It seems like it won’t be a repeat, but rather a refreshing, light-hearted way to experience the story.

Astro bot coming exclusively to PS5 on September 9. Lego Horizon Adventures However, it will be available to a much wider audience as it will be released later this year for the Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Windows PC.