The PS5's DualSense Controller is Astro Bot's Secret Weapon

Sony and Team Asobi's Astro Bot is practically a dream come true for just about anyone who played the PS5's excellent system pack-in, Astro's Playroom. Astro's Playroom was a quaint and charming platformer that paid homage to the history of the PlayStation in celebration of the launch of the PS5, but more than that, it was the first (and, for a long time, the best) title to utilize every feature of Sony's DualSense controller. Astro Bot is similar in that it squeezes every bit of functionality out of the DualSense to deliver a platforming experience that goes beyond the traditional conventions of the genre, pushing the envelope of what "interactive media" entails.

Like in Astro's Playroom, Astro Bot leverages the DualSense controller's sound features and haptic feedback to give the game a tactile and kinesthetic quality that escapes most platformers. Experiencing Astro Bot is more than just playing a game, it genuinely feels like interacting with a physical object, not unlike the childhood experience of playing with toys. While Astro Bot features some excellent level design, creative platforming challenges, and a plethora of references to the PlayStation's history, it's its use of the DualSense controller that elevates the game to being a truly special PS5 exclusive.

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By Josh Cotts

Astro Bot's Use of the DualSense Helps to Redefine Games' Place as Interactive Media

A large part of what makes video games unique among other mediums is their interactivity. And for years, developers have put the special and unique qualities of video games to good use in delivering experiences that could only be possible within the context of interactive media. In that sense, Astro Bot's use of the DualSense controller feels at once like a full-circle moment for the physical act of interacting with video games and a nostalgic callback to the childhood wonder that playing games for the first time instilled in so many players. Even though Astro Bot is a digital experience players manipulate using a physical device, the haptic feedback of the DualSense transforms the experience into one that is uncharacteristically tactile for a video game.

Some of this ingenuity was on display in Astro's Playroom, helping it to stand out as the PS5's best use case for the DualSense. But what Team Asobi has similarly accomplished in Astro Bot is on a whole other level. The way that the DualSense controller feels and reacts to Astro Bot simply walking on different types of terrain is an accomplishment in and of itself. Traversing a variety of environments is something that players do in just about every platformer, but Astro Bot transforms that common action into something that has a definitive "feel" depending on whether they're walking over sand, glass, water, leaves, or metal.

Team Asobi's Understanding of the DualSense's Capabilities Should Serve as Inspiration

Astro Bot with a number of rescued bots in a PS controller

At a bare minimum, Team Asobi's accomplishments with Astro Bot have earned it a legitimate shot at being a Game of the Year contender, but the game's impact has the opportunity to reach much further. Few developers have taken advantage of the DualSense's unique capabilities since the 9th hardware generation began back in 2020. Surprising, given that the DualSense controller is, along with the console's exclusives, the main factor that distinctly separates playing games on a PS5 from experiencing them on PC or Xbox Series consoles. Astro Bot is now a great example of how skillful implementation of the DualSense controller's functionality can transform an already great game into an unmissable experience.

Astro Bot even pushes this idea through its implementation of stages that call back to other first-party Sony franchises. One example that immediately stands out is the God of War- themed level, which mixes in elements of both God of War and Ragnarok into Astro Bot's framework to great effect, including inventive use of the DualSense controller that goes beyond what's on display in Sony Santa Monica's award-winning franchise reboot. Astro Bot shows that the history of PlayStation is still a story in progress, and its implementation of the DualSense's full functionality should serve as a reminder to all developers how transformative it can be in making games feel "next-gen."