The Astro Bot developer didn't expect to win the GOTY at The Game Awards

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Summary

  • Astro Bot director Nicolas Doucet was shocked to see the game win the Game of the Year award at The Game Awards 2024.

  • Doucet began preparing notes for a potential GOTY speech after Astro Bot won Best Director of a Game.

  • Team Asobi members in Japan were overjoyed at Astro Bot's award win, with lead designer Hiroaki Yatoku watching the segment repeatedly.

Astro Bot director Nicolas Doucet and other developers at Team Asobi did not expect the game to win the prestigious Game of the Year award at The Game Awards 2024. The Team Asobi developers who remained in Japan were delighted to see Astro Bot win the top prize and other key people from the studio shared their thoughts on the moment.

Released on September 6, 2024, Astro Bot is the sequel to the 2018 century Astro Bot Rescue Mission for PlayStation VR and the 2020s Astro's playroomwhich was a pre-installed launch title for the PlayStation 5. Astro Bot quickly became the highest-rated PS5 game of the year, and in December it was one of six titles nominated for the Game of the Year award. Alongside Astro Botwere the nominees Balatro, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Ring of Fire: Shadow of the Erdtreeand Black Myth Wukong.

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Doucet did not expect Astro Bot to win the Game of the Year award at The Game Awards 2024, but he began to believe that Team Asobi would receive the top honor after Astro Bot won the award for Best Game Direction, according to Famitsu (via Twisted Voxel). After this award win, Doucet began preparing notes for a speech on his smartphone leading up to the final award segment. When Astro Bot was announced as the winner of Game of the Year, Doucet was shocked and looked over to other members of Team Asobi in attendance, including lead sound designer Junko Sano. Doucet did not remember much about the final moments of the awards ceremony and his speech due to his shock at the time. On the other hand, Sano was very happy and felt that the award was an unexpected reward for helping the game get its positive reception from fans. As a developer involved in the Japanese game industry for a long time, she was touched that many Japanese games were nominated at the show along with Astro Bot.

Astro Bot developers didn't expect to win GOTY at The Game Awards

Lead game designer Hiroaki Yatoku was also happy to see Astro Bot win the Game of the Year award, and his lasting impression from the moment was to see everyone on Team Asobi overjoyed. According to Yatoku, Team Asobi developers who remained in Japan watched the award ceremony live stream and were very happy to see Astro Bot receive its award as Game of the Year. It was a moment Yatoku saw over and over, but like Sano, he didn't think about the awards leading up to the ceremony or when he was working on Astro Bot.

Astro Bot was one of the best games of 2024 with a very strong critical reception on OpenCritic at 95 and Metacritic at 94. The Team Asobi-developed platformer also won the awards for Best Family Game and Best Action/Adventure at The Game Awards 2024, along with Best Game Direction and Game of the Year.

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