It truly takes advantage of all the different features the PS5 remote offers and is just pure awesome joy. Here are the games released during 2025 that have won major industry awards or received nominations for those awards. We’ll update our awards tracker whenever new awards and nominations are announced. It even feels like some popping candy has smuggled its way into your controller as it fizzes and pings away, sweetly reacting to whatever is happening on screen. Astro Bot is a showcase for the DualSense’s bells and whistles unlike anything since, well… Triggers tighten in your fingers and rumbles are sent through your thumbs.
Lost Square Void Overview
ASTRO BOT is a single-player experience designed to deliver a focused and immersive adventure. Nebulas is the main antagonist of the series, a space bully who loves causing trouble for Astro and his friends. He’s a green-skinned alien with a massive mouth, always looking for ways to make life difficult for the crew.
Getting Started
Feel the might of power-ups and the tension of tools as you repair the PS5 mothership. These powers give ASTRO weird and wonderful ways to explore planets and battle his enemies. With your new powers, battle out a whole new roster of quirky baddies and huge bosses.
Sometimes there’s just basic, fun references to classic characters, in-world jokes using PlayStation hardware including zip lines made from PS1 controller cords and the like. However, at other points, you take on the powers of key guest characters from PlayStation’s past. There is, for instance, a God of War stage – I don’t want to spoil the others, most of which I liked even more, but Kratos has appeared in marketing materials thus far so I felt like the best choice for showing an example. Really, the whole game feels as if it were created to push as much ‘stuff’ as possible. [newline]Objects break, give and collect in huge numbers lending the game world a tremendous amount of life. As you rescue bots, for instance, they gather on the game’s central planet and the engine has zero trouble displaying all of them at once. You can recruit them to help you out and it’s a joy watching them all gather in huge numbers.
Like its predecessor, Astro Bot is a love letter to PlayStation–not just its current make-up, either, but its illustrious history. From first-party icons like Kratos and Ellie to third-party heroes tied to the hip with Sony’s gaming past, such as Lara Croft and Leon S. Kennedy. There are 195 hidden cameo characters in Astro Bot’s dozens of levels, and part of the fun is tracking them all down. Astro Bot is quite literally this year’s best game yet, and it being a single-player platformer makes it all the more special. It checks all the boxes of being a complete package with its visuals, story, value, audio design, and most importantly, gameplay.
The hardware quality is also mixed, with one customer reporting no marks or scuffs on their unit. But what I really love about Astro Bot is that it’s also just filled with bits and pieces. Stuff to roll around in, stuff that forms little piles that can be kicked about.
But in reality, Team Asobi’s delightful platformer was perfectly placed to take an easy route down the middle to gaming’s top prize. Astro Bot took home four awards — it also won Best Game Direction, Best Action/Adventure Game, and Best Family Game — making it the biggest winner of the night. It is no surprise that a game like Astro Bot could be the big winner of the Game Awards. Astro Bot proves that creativity, fun and well applied technology is what the industry needs right now (and well, we can’t deny the touch of nostalgia or the amazing use of licenses). PlayStation can clean up the sour taste of last year, and perhaps show them that there are other paths to greatness. The Stranded Scout, Nightmare Guardian, Greedy Ape, and Pro Driver Cameo Bots will only be available at the Crash Site once players have unlocked them in Astro’s Playroom.
The game provides a complete experience with all content available through gameplay. Journey through inventive levels filled with surprises, from sticky-tongued frog gloves to mouse-sized adventures. Each stage brings new abilities and challenges, making every moment a delight. Astro Bot represents the pinnacle of PlayStation’s platforming excellence, evolving from its origins in The Playroom VR to become one of gaming’s most beloved mascots.
Think of the character Astro Bot has in Sony’s version of Nintendo’s Mario or Sega’s Sonic The Hedgehog. The small robot is the PlayStation’s lead mascot for the console. Now Team Asobi has been given the chance to unleash all that expertise in playfulness on Astro Bot, a full-scale game that exists for its own ends rather than to serve a Sony marketing plan. When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun — and worth fitting into your schedule. If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch.
Part of that Nintendo feel is also shown across the game’s bosses. Astro Bot crams in nearly two dozen boss encounters, some that repeat in certain ways, but all of them are truly special events. From flying atop a bird as you smash away at its helmet, to a Djinn or a Gorilla, these fights are simple in their design, but due to the wondrous abilities and the slick controls, are engaging and often magical. That said, the final battle is likely the weakest, coming across as the less creative design of the entire bunch, which is a shame since the game goes to great lengths to show us Nebulax between each world. Still, the other fights are very impressive and constantly shine.
Controlling Astro is a joy, with him being extremely responsive as he runs, jumps, uses his foot-lasers to hover a small distance, and lash out at enemies with his short metal arms. You’ll use these basic skills liberally as you explore the levels found within each star system, negotiating platforms, avoiding traps and overcoming a wide range of enemies. Thought it was the best platforming experience since Bowsers Fury. But im very frustrated by how cruel the last extra level can be.
And when it all collides, you are presented with some of the best moments the game has to offer. Players venture across six galaxies and over 80 levels, from lush forests, sandy beaches, hot volcanoes to more surprising locations such as a gigantic hourglass or the canopy of a singing tree. During this epic adventure Astro will reunite with over 150 iconic heroes from PlayStation history, helping to kick off celebrations for the 30th anniversary of PlayStation.
Sure, some are coated in different colours of paint or dressed to fit in with their surroundings, but they are all vanquished via the same few fundamental jump and hit combos. Later on, though, the design book opens up and introduces some of my favourite foes. These include an anthropomorphic playing card that flings a hand of clubs and spades your way, which you can then jump on to make your way towards the enemy to deal a killing blow of your own. That soundtrack scores levels that seem simple at first, but soon unfurl themselves to reveal tantalising depths and secrets. Most are fairly linear, but some go the extra mile and are enjoyably knotty, providing sandbox-like areas to hunt for collectibles in. There’s never the openness found in the large-by-comparison Mario Odyssey levels, but enough nooks and crannies to get stuck into nonetheless.