Upon receiving a PlayStation 5, all players are treated to Astro’s Playroom, already installed on the console and designed to showcase the abilities of the new PS5 controller, the Dualsense.
Following it’s largely underwhelming pack-in predecessors, Welcome Pack for PS Vita and The Playroom for PS4, Astro’s Playroom had a lot to prove, hoping to finally answer the question; can a demo game actually be good?
In short, yes, it can.
Astro’s Playroom is the perfect introduction to the PS5. Whilst it does act somewhat as a tech demo to show off the capabilities of the DualSense controller, Astro’s Playroom is also a really fun game in its own right.
The 16 levels of Astro’s Playroom are set across four worlds – one for each previous PlayStation console. The collectibles throughout the game are various Sony artifacts, which are viewable in the game hub. Seeing these collectibles pop up makes for really nostalgic gameplay, especially for players with a long history with PlayStation.
Traversing the different worlds, you’ll come across different scenarios which cause the DualSense to react differently. Rain, thunder and sunshine all feel different as Astro ventures through them, creating a really immersive gameplay experience.
Astro’s Playroom is a bright platformer which showcases the capabilities of the PS5 and the DualSense controller, but it’s so much more. It’s a game which is packed with nostalgia and charm. It’s easy to blast through Astro’s Playroom in one playthrough, it has a short campaign of around 6 hours, but they’re 6 hours packed with fun gameplay, and cute aesthetics.
Culture Shack 