Team Asobi Is The Newest PlayStation First-Party Studio

Sony has formally announced that Team Asobi will be the newest addition to their first-party studios. For those who don’t know, Team Asobi are the developers behind the critically acclaimed PSVR title Astro Bot Rescue Mission and the PlayStation 5 pack-in game Astro’s Playroom.

During a Q&A session with the PlayStation Blog today, Head of PlayStation Studios, Herman Hulst, announced the new team and revealed that they are “developing a franchise for all ages with global appeal.” Later in the day, Team Asobi’s Studio and Creative Director Nicolas Doucet put out a celebratory message on the PlayStation Blog introducing the team to everyone.

“Following the release of Astro’s Playroom for PlayStation 5, Team Asobi is now spreading its wings and growing bigger! This is a very exciting time for the team, and we are very much looking forward to this next chapter.”

Although the team is getting bigger now that they’re a full-fledged first-party studio, Doucet assures that they haven’t lost sight of their original mission to “bring you PlayStation magic, innovation and put smiles on your faces with fun, colorful games for all ages.” This all stems from their overall philosophy of finding the “quintessential joy in play.”

Doucet doesn’t confirm what Team Asobi’s next project is, but he does tease that it will make use of the PS5’s DualSense controller and its many features.

I absolutely adored Astro’s Playroom when I played it. In my review of the game, I said it was a “great platformer that’s filled with charm and creativity, as well as a tease of what your DualSense controller can do.” After seeing the really cool and unique things Team Asobi did with the DualSense in that game, I can only imagine what other new and fun ideas they’ll come up with in their future projects.

In other PlayStation news, the company confirmed that the new God of War has been delayed to 2022 and will be releasing on both PS4 and PS5. They also announced that Days Gone developer Bend Studio is working on a brand new IP.