Astro Bot cameos with "more cartoony" appearances will wear masks, as sometimes "LED eyes just didn't work"
Vitamin see.
Astro Bot is set to make its debut in less than two short weeks time (Eee!) and ahead of this, the team has shed more light on those adorable PlayStation cameos we can expect to meet on release
These are "in-game versions of popular PlayStation-related characters", of which we previously heard there will be over 150.
Famous faces from PlayStation's history we will see popping up in Astro Bot include the likes of God of War's Kratos, Aloy from the Horizon games and treasure hunter Nathan Drake from Uncharted.
Speaking on these inclusions, Team Asobi's studio director Nicolas Doucet explained that these characters had to have "a cool sci-fi design" but also "things like fabrics or furry boots". This meant the team "sometimes felt we might be going against the original intent of the character" and therefore Doucet said the developer "substituted more organic materials, like hair, with materials such as vinyl". Makes sense.
But, as with Astro Bot themselves, a lot of the character design for these cameos is about the eyes. The eyes are "paramount", Doucet said.
This caused a bit of an issue with some of the "more cartoony" cameos, however, as "LED eyes just didn't work on certain characters because the original design relies so much on the pupils being a certain size or colour". As a result characters such as Crash Bandicoot's bot will instead be wearing a mask "to help bridge that problem".
Will it be a Zorro style band across the eyes, or more of a halloween-style pull over mask in the style of a bot? Alas, I do not know right now, but I am looking forward to finding out!
As for Astro Bot, a couple of us have already been hands on with the upcoming PS5 exclusive, and came away impressed. "It feels bold to say so early on, but if the demo's quality is representative of the full game, Astro Bot looks like a strong candidate for the top spot on my own game of the year list," Digital Foundry's John wrote after a little hands-on time with it earlier this year.
Meanwhile, our Chris called Astro Bot "one of the most joyful experiences of Summer Game Fest" following his time with the game.