On the fence about picking up Astro Bot? Eight minutes of new gameplay might be able to help you make up your mind

Astro Bot is getting its very own game in September, but if you aren’t sure whether you want to pick it up or not, there’s some new gameplay that might help you out.

Back in May, PlayStation finally revealed that long-rumoured Astro Bot sequel, showing off a taste of the game’s greatly expanded upon platforming action. There were some previews for the game last month, which were generally quite favourable, and now it seems that that demo that the press got to go hands on with is currently available to try out at ChinaJoy 2024. The gameplay, which you can check out below, shows off a few levels, one being mostly a boss fight with a giant octopus monster. This one sees Astro picking up some boxing gloves that lets it shoot out its fists to fight enemies and swing across large gaps.

The second is an honestly quite challenging looking level set in space which just so happens to have a cameo from Jak and Daxter, who you have to save. Lastly is another difficult looking level that involves some tricky platforming, with this one having you rescue the player character from Journey. Clearly this seems to be a running thing throughout the game, and considering there are over 150 classic PlayStation characters featured in the game, it looks like you’ll have a lot of difficult levels ahead of you (though I imagine some of them will just be cameos).

It really does look quite good overall, which is reassuring as Astro’s Playroom, the PS5 pack-in demo, was a surprising amount of fun. That one was mostly just to show off the PS5’s new features, like the haptic feedback and triggers, but the full on sequel will expand to over 80 levels. If the gameplay has caught your intention, you’ll be able to pick it up on PS5 on September 6, later this year.