This article contains spoilers for Astro Bot.
After playing throughAstro Bot’s tribute levels, I realized that there was something that his adventures with Kratos, Aloy, Nathan Drake, Spike from Ape Escpae, and LocoRoco reminded me of. These levels, which see Astro taking on the appearance and abilities of iconicPlayStationcharacters, are basically missions from aLegovideo game.
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Specifically, they remind me ofLego Star Wars, but that’s probably just because those are the Lego video games I’ve spent the most time with. Each level of a Lego Star Wars game reenacts scenes from one of the movies. The most recent entry, 2022’s Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, recreated each major beat from every mainline Star Wars movie. From The Phantom Menace to The Rise of Skywalker,
Traveller’s Tales' action-adventure game let you relive all the big set pieces. Whether you wanted to lightsaber fight Darth Maul, blast AT-ATs on Hoth, or hang out with Luke Skyalker on Ahch-To, the game had something forStar Warsfans of all stripes (except the weird, annoyingly vocal ones whoseem to hate everything about Star Wars).
Astro Bot is especially alike the older Lego games because, in those earlier games, no one talked. The Lego characters pantomimed their way through the action, which gave the games a silent film comedy vibe that you don’t see in video games all that often. The tribute levels play out in a similar way. Astro runs into a PlayStation character who’s usually in a bit of jam. When he finds Nathan Drake in theUncharted-themed level Dude Raiding, the iconic explorer is crouching in cover, firing a gun at some of Astro’s gooey enemies in the distance. When Astro enters the scene, the Dude Raider tosses him his gun, and Astro transforms into Nathan Drake, complete with spiky hair.
Astro Bot And Lego Games Both Star Caricatures Of Our Favorite Characters
Kratos, Aloy, and Nathan Drake don’t talk so they’re entirely characterized through movement and body language — and their bodies are very simple at that. That means they have to play more cartoonish, two-dimensional versions of themselves. Nathan Drake seems overwhelmed. Kratos seems powerful and confident. Aloy seems clever and spunky. They aren’t complex, they’re caricatures.
And that’s how Han Solo and Qui-Gon Jinn acted in the Lego Star Wars games, because this is exactly how the Lego games handle their relationship to the source material. They were suggestions of characters more than actual people and, given how much the story stuck to broad strokes, that completely worked. When characters can’t talk and have simple faces, that’s about all you can do. And if the audience knows the story front and back, inference is all you need.
This is notable because it isn’t how Sony handles its characters at all any more. InHorizon Forbidden West, Aloy has red cheeks and chapped lips and peach fuzz. In Astro Bot, she barely has facial features.The Last of Us Part 2got a ton of attention for how believably Ellie took off a shirt. In Astro Bot, you change clothes by punching the mannequin that’s wearing the outfit you want. In Uncharted 4, Nate’s biggest obstacle is breaking trust in his marriage. In Astro Bot, my guy is just trying to defeat some slimes.
Astro Bot has gotten praised for how fresh it is when compared with the rest of the games Sony is making right now, how focused it is on gameplay over graphics. This is why it feels so different. Sony has gotten really good at making believable characters. Here, they don’t need to be. They can be caricatures, costumes, and cartoons. The only thing they can’t be is realistic.
