Nicolas Doucet, the director of the wildly popular PlayStation 5 platformer Astro Bot, wanted the developers at Team Asobi to keep Japan Studio in mind while working on the title. Not only that, but in a new interview with Ungeek, Doucet said that keeping PlayStation’s history in Japan in mind was also valuable.
“We represent Japan, right? We want to be that team in Japan – PlayStation in Japan has a [storied] history and we want to be the guardians of the flame.”
Japan Studio was the video game development division for Sony Interactive Entertainment from 1993 until 2021, when it was merged with Team Asobi. The first-party developer released a number of legendary titles during its run, including Ape Escape, Gravity Rush, Bloodborne, and The Legend of Dragoon.
“The person who animated the boy in The Last Guardian is our animation director today,” Doucet said. “So, it was interesting for him who animated the boy, to actually animate and direct the team animating [Astro Bot]. It’s interesting to see two different styles, but the same sort of soul has to go into the characters.”
Astro Bot was released on September 6 for PlayStation 5. The title isn’t coming to the PlayStation VR2, but Astro Bot may come to PC in the future if there is enough player interest.
“Inside the team, we have people from the Gravity Daze (Gravity Rush) team. We have people from Trico (The Last Guardian). We have people from Ape Escape,” Doucet continued. “And it’s not because these people are here that we have to please them, but we know that because they’re here and because they’re good people, they will do justice to those games.”
