"Astro Bot: Cut Content Revealed - Bird Flight Level and Headless Astro"

Astro Bot enthusiasts are familiar with the iconic sponge power-up, but did you know that developer Team Asobi also experimented with even more outlandish abilities, such as a coffee grinder and a roulette wheel? This intriguing tidbit came to light during IGN's coverage of GDC 2025, where Team Asobi's studio director, Nicolas Doucet, delivered an insightful presentation titled "The Making of 'ASTRO BOT'." In his talk, Doucet provided a deep dive into the creation process of the PlayStation mascot platformer, showcasing a variety of early prototype images and content that didn't make the final cut.

Doucet kicked off his presentation by discussing the initial pitch for Astro Bot, which was crafted in May 2021, shortly after Team Asobi began prototyping the game. He revealed that the pitch went through an impressive 23 revisions before being presented to senior management. The pitch itself was presented as an adorable comic strip that highlighted the game's main pillars and activities, a format that evidently resonated well with its audience.

A slide from Nicholas Doucet's GDC talk, The Making of 'ASTRO BOT', showing a comic book explanation of the game's pitch.

Next, Doucet delved into the team's idea generation process. Unsurprisingly, it involved extensive brainstorming sessions, but Team Asobi took a unique approach by forming small, interdisciplinary groups of 5-6 members. These groups would jot down or sketch their ideas on individual sticky notes, resulting in a visually striking brainstorming board.

Another slide from the talk, showing sticky note brainstorms from Team Asobi.

Not all ideas progressed to the prototyping stage, with only about 10% making the cut, according to Doucet. However, this still led to a significant amount of prototyping. He emphasized the importance of prototyping across all departments, not just game design. For instance, audio designers created a theater within Astro Bot to experiment with haptic controller vibrations that synchronized with various sound effects, such as different ways a door could open and close.

Another slide from the talk, showing a sponge prototype alongside concept art of Astro Bot becoming a sponge.

The significance of prototyping was so crucial to the Astro Bot team that certain programmers were dedicated solely to prototyping non-platforming elements. This approach birthed Astro Bot's beloved sponge mechanic, which was prototyped to utilize the adaptive trigger's squeeze function and ultimately became a core feature of the game.

Another slide from the talk showing various prototype activities that were made for Astro Bot.

Doucet shared an image showcasing various prototypes, including those that made it into the game, like the balloon and sponge, and those that didn't, such as a tennis game, a wind-up toy, a roulette wheel, a coffee grinder, and several others.

Later in his presentation, Doucet discussed how levels were chosen and designed around specific mechanics. The goal was to ensure that each level offered unique gameplay experiences and didn't feel repetitive. While the same power-up could be used in multiple levels, its application had to be distinct enough to maintain the level's uniqueness. He illustrated this with examples, such as a cut level themed around bird flights, which was scrapped due to its similarities to other levels using the monkey power-up.

"In the end, it was decided that the overlap was not healthy enough to create variety, and we just cut this level entirely," he explained. "We'll never know if that level would have been popular. But in hindsight, I think it's a good thing that we got to spend that time elsewhere."

Another slide, showing a cut level from Astro Bot alongside two other implemented levels.

Doucet concluded his talk by discussing the game's final scene, and yes, this is Spoilers if you haven't finished Astro Bot yet. Read on at your own risk.

In the final scene of Astro Bot, players reassemble a broken Astro Bot with the help of other bots. Initially, the scene featured a completely dismembered Astro Bot, with just the torso remaining. However, this version upset some players, leading the team to opt for the slightly more intact version seen in the final game.

A clip from Doucet's presentation showing the original ending of Astro Bot.

Doucet's presentation was rich with fascinating insights and anecdotes about the development of Astro Bot, a game that IGN awarded a 9/10 in our review, praising it as "A fantastically inventive platformer in its own right, Astro Bot is particularly special for anyone with a place in their heart for PlayStation."