YES! Sony has listened to our pleas for more of Robot's Rescue... Enter Astro Bot!

The launch of PlayStation VR seems so long ago, now that we're in the middle of 2018. Still, most of us can remember back to the systems launch window, and one of our most cherished memories is the time we spent with the Robot's Rescue segment from The Playroom VR. Despite it's brevity (only lasting around 12 minutes), the segment really resonated strongly with most PSVR gamers. Perhaps it's because many of us started off our game playing careers enjoying classic 3D platformers like Super Mario 64 or the Ratchet and Clank series. Many more of us go back much further, to the days of early Mario and Sonic games.

However, you'd normally think that this kind of genre wouldn't work so well in VR. Isn't Virtual Reality all about the immersion? Shouldn't we be standing up, with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other? How's a VR platforming game going to work? Is it just going to be a better 3D perspective and nothing else? Japan Studio considered the same problems when they began development of The Playroom VR, and they implemented some very clever solutions. Their No.1 solution was to bring the human player literally into the game with their favorite action-platform character. In Robot Rescue, the player's controller is fully represented in the game, and is an extremely important part of the gameplay. It's an absolute stroke of genius by Japan Studio to get the human player involved in what's actually occurring on screen with their adorable platforming mascot.

Almost immediately, PSVR gamers began to bombard Sony with tweets and requests for a much longer, expanded adventure based on Robot's Rescue. In those early days, a week wouldn't go by without a new thread on the PlayStation VR subreddit with somebody requesting that Sony make a full-blown adventure out of Robot's Rescue. Unfortunately, at that time, it seemed like our pleas were falling on deaf ears, because we got nothing but silence from Sony. It seemed like an absolute no-brainer for Sony's beloved Japan Studio to follow up on this, but maybe Sony had other plans. Fast forward to today's announcement, and this is an absolute dream come true for many diehard PSVR supporters. This is exactly the announcement we've all been waiting for. A brand new trailer for this new game, titled Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, has been released on YouTube:

We don't really have much more to go on at this point, besides the trailer. No release date is mentioned, but we have to cross our fingers and hope that Astro Bot: Rescue Mission is scheduled for a 2018 launch. Fall 2018 could be the perfect arrival time for such a game, when you consider that many new PSVR owners will be joining the fold for the holiday season. Astro Bot: Rescue Mission is the type of game that can appeal to a wide swath of players, much in the same way that Polyarc's Moss has recently caught fire with the greater PSVR community. In fact, it can be noted that Polyarc probably was heavily inspired by the gameplay of Robot's Rescue, considering how the player interacts with the platforming character Quill. The similarities between Moss and Robot's Rescue are obvious to anyone that has experienced both. Still, as well as Polyarc did with Moss, PSVR gamers are still salivating at the opportunity to see what Japan Studio could do with a full development cycle on the Robot's Rescue concept. All of us here at VR Game Rankings are salivating as well! Stay tuned for more info in the coming months!