Astro Bot Devs Reveal Surprising Cut Content, Including Coffee Grinder and Disturbing Ending

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Summary

  • Team Asobi lead Nicolas Doucet recently revealed that Astro Bot’s cut content included quirky power-ups like a coffee grinder and roulette wheel.
  • A level designed around bird flight was also shelved due to excessive overlap with another Astro Bot power-up.
  • Astro Bot’s original ending was too disturbing for some players, and was accordingly tweaked.

According to the director Nicolas Doucet, there were numerous intriguing features initially planned for the game, but didn’t make it into the final release of ‘Astro Bot’. These included playful power-ups, skills, stages, and even a more detailed version of the game’s ending sequence.

In September 2024, Astro Bot, a delightful and playful PS5 platformer, was unveiled, leaving many captivated by its overwhelmingly positive reviews from both critics and players. With a Metacritic average score of 94%, and currently boasting a 92% user rating, the game has exceeded expectations. Remarkably, Astro Bot even claimed the prestigious Game of the Year title at The Game Awards 2025, and to date, it holds the record for the most award-winning platformer ever made.

Initially launched with 90 levels and more than 150 VIP bots, it’s been disclosed that Astro Bot from Team Asobi had even more content planned for its platformer. A recent report by IGN sheds light on a GDC 2025 talk titled “The Creation of Astro Bot,” led by director Nicolas Doucet. During this talk, Doucet shared insights into the game’s development process. The concept for Astro Bot was initially proposed back in May 2021, shortly after Team Asobi started working on the game prototype. Over the course of its development, the game went through 23 different versions before settling on a captivating comic strip pitch that eventually won over PlayStation executives.

Astro Bot’s Cut Content Included a Coffee Grinder, Roulette Wheel, and a Bird-Themed Level

Later on, at Team Asobi, compact teams brainstormed countless ideas for Astro Bot using sticky notes. Approximately 10% of these ideas advanced to the prototype stage. Some of these prototypes led to features like the balloon and sponge, which ended up in Astro Bot. However, other more unconventional concepts such as a roulette wheel and a coffee grinder were eventually discarded. A bird-themed level was also scrapped because it was too similar to the monkey power-up from Astro’s Playroom and Astro Bot’s Go-Go Archipelago level, which already featured similar gameplay.

Astro Bot’s Original Ending Was Rather Graphic and Distressing for Some

To conclude, Doucet shared that the original ending for Astro Bot would have left players with a completely disassembled Astro character, missing arms, legs, and even a head, to fix. As expected, this concept upset some individuals according to Doucet, leading Team Asobi to abandon it and instead opt for a more complete version of Astro in the game’s final scene.

It’s fascinating to explore the creative methods and discarded elements that are integral to a game’s creation, particularly when discussing a highly-acclaimed title such as Astro Bot. In fact, Team Asobi recently unveiled five additional speedrun levels for Astro Bot this year, and there’s speculation about whether they might reveal more free content in the remainder of 2025.

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2025-04-15 21:46