Astro’s Playroom was the short platforming adventure title that came included with every PlayStation 5. Its main purpose was to show off the various new features purported by the DualSense controller, but it earned a lot of merit in its own right, many finding it a fun visually-pleasing platformer with a lot of clever easter eggs. It would seem the positive buzz boded well for Team Asobi, the developers, as during an interview with gamesindustry.biz they stated that their next title will be their “biggest to date,” and that it will be a “full-blown commercial title.”
Team Asobi was previously a smaller division of Japan Studio, the larger development entity that helmed PlayStation‘s first-party Japanese content output. However, back in April 2021, Sony announced that Japan Studio would be shutting down and only Team Asobi would live on to build on the popularity of Astro’s Playroom. Prior to that title, Team Asobi had worked on a handful of VR and AR games, most notably Astro Bot Rescue mission in 2018.
Nicolas Doucet, the director of the Japanese studio, mentioned these prior titles when discussing the team’s mindset during the development of Astro’s Playroom. He explains what a big goal it was for them to prove themselves in being able to make a standard controller game, as opposed to their prior VR titles. “Can we live up to making a TV game?” he wondered, “Are our skills sufficient?” Doucet noted that it felt like a big responsibility since the game was going to be the entry point to the PS5 for many players, but ultimately, the game made their confidence grow.
When the 2020 launch title was released, Team Asobi only had 35 employees. That number is now at 60, and Doucet states he expects it to reach 100, which aligns with their future plans to make a much bigger game. Doucet explains how they always like having a small portion of the team specifically dedicated to research and development. The studio seemingly places a lot of importance on innovating beyond the standard ways to play and pushing the boundaries of the available technology.
“Any new technology, we like to take it for a spin,” says Doucet. “There’s the obvious way to use it, which is the first thing we are going to try, and then we are going to try to use it in ways you’re not supposed to.” He goes on to speak on the DualSense, describing it as a sort of “special weapon” for them, alluding that this next commercial title of theirs is going to be another traditional non-VR gaming experience.
Finally, Doucet speaks on the culture of the studio, and the importance of having the game feel Japanese but still be seamlessly accessible at an international level. He states that a game being Japanese goes beyond genre or visuals, that it’s more about how the game feels. “This perfection of controls really runs through the veins of Japanese game developers. It’s been that way forever,” he says. The name Asobi comes from the Japanese verb ‘Asobu’, meaning ‘to play.’ He states this is at the heart of the team’s mindset during development, as making their games fundamentally fun to play is their primary goal.
