30 years later, PlayStation has lost its edge-Adam Starkey-Entertainment – Metro

Astro Bot is a reminder of better days (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

PlayStation’s 30th anniversary is a huge milestone for a game-changing brand, but reflecting on its history only accentuates what’s missing today.

It’s no coincidence that Astro Bot, a celebratory platformer drizzled with PlayStation icons past and present, has launched in the same year as the company’s 30th anniversary. The game is remarkably polished and abundantly creative in its own right, but it hangs together through its focus on PlayStation history – with hidden references and special levels dedicated to classics ranging from Ape Escape to God Of War. 

Nostalgia is an exhausted tenet of modern culture, but any cynicism around Astro Bot can be easily diffused because PlayStation has otherwise been so ineffective at celebrating its own history.

PlayStation 3 stalwarts may recall defending PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Sony’s tepid answer to Super Smash Bros. which pitted Sly Cooper against that bloke from Dead Space. Sony tried to emulate Nintendo’s success at toasting the past again in 2018 with the PlayStation Classic console, but again the attempt was lacklustre.

After these ill-fated efforts, Astro Bot seems even better by comparison. A big, colourful splash of silliness at a time when many PlayStation exclusives border on pretentious. There’s a double-edged sword to Astro Bot’s reminiscences though, where nods to the likes of Parappa The Rapper and LocoRoco become a sad reminder of the fact that Sony just doesn’t make games like that anymore.

When it launched on December 3, 1994, the original PlayStation was marketed around edginess. It was the games console for ‘cool’ teens; those who preferred wise-cracking Crash Bandicoot over blank canvas Mario, and rejoiced when Lara Croft posed semi-nude for lads mags. The TV adverts are cringey now but, next to family-friendly Nintendo, it filled a clear gap in the market, with the PlayStation becoming the first games console to sell over 100 million units. 

As someone who was below the age of 10 when the PlayStation hit its peak, the console was mainly a vessel for child-friendly platformers like Spyro The Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, and the regularly-rented Bugs Bunny: Lost In Time.

While all of these left an impression, my most formative memories of the console are all the games I watched the older kids play – spectating my brother’s journey through Metal Gear Solid, glimpsing at Silent Hill’s foggy horrors from behind the sofa, or watching my dad’s friend (cool because he had a lip-piercing) hold back the swear words as he missed another precisely calculated jump in Tomb Raider. 

Looking back, the PlayStation was fascinating because of the sheer breadth of its library. According to database MobyGames, the Nintendo 64 had 385 games during its lifespan, whereas the PlayStation had upwards of 3,000.

The revolutionary compact disc format made games far cheaper to publish than on a cartridge, with less red tape in general and few rules over content. This led to such classics as Ridge Racer, Syphon Filter, Resident Evil, Driver, WipEout, Destruction Derby, Twisted Metal, Oddworld, Croc, Gran Turismo, MediEvil, and many others – most of which were exclusive to PlayStation.

Metal Gear Solid is as cool as it gets (Konami)

Almost all of these games are highlighted in Astro Bot, but it’s dispiriting how few of the franchises, and others across subsequent generations, have any presence on PlayStation today.

Japan Studio, the team behind Shadow Of The Colossus and Ape Escape, has been closed down. WipEout, Twisted Metal (TV show aside), and Destruction Derby have been left dormant for years, while the likes of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro are now multiplatform IP, untethered from Sony’s stable.

To Sony’s credit, many studios under its ownership have created new franchises for each new console cycle. Naughty Dog has evolved from Crash Bandicoot to Uncharted, Media Molecule from LittleBigPlanet to Dreams, but the output across the majority of them has become more homogenised in recent years.

God Of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last Of Us, Spider-Man, and Ghost Of Tsushima are, when boiled down, different flavours of the same third person, narrative-led action game – all sticking closely to an established, financially successful recipe.

Horizon Forbidden West – there’s definitely a modern Sony formula (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

When development costs are at an all-time high, it’s understandable why Sony, and the AAA space at large, would become more conservative. The indie space is now the place for shoot-from-the-hip experiments, which includes throwbacks to early PlayStation aesthetics (hello, Crow Country), but it’s hard to imagine anyone having the same affection in 30 years for the current era of Sony.

That isn’t to say Sony isn’t experimenting today. To a degree, every major games company is gambling on a live service hit, despite the low odds of coming up with another Fortnite. However, with so much time and money invested into something which might be shut down two weeks later, the legacy of PlayStation’s modern curveballs threatens to be an inaccessible graveyard preserved only in YouTube clips. 

The original PlayStation changed the gaming landscape forever, whether through marketing or its democratisation of 3D graphics, but in the years since its lightning bolt debut, Sony has drifted into a pedestrian shadow of its former self.

Wider industry trends might be partly to blame, as well as the ever increasing cost of making games, but when PlayStation’s legacy is highlighted so clearly in Astro Bot, it’s hard not to feel like something has been lost along the way.

Astro Bot is a reminder of better days (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

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