Astro Bot has more cameos than you probably realised there were PlayStation games, but there’s one game that feels conspicuously absent: Final Fantasy 7.
I feel like it probably isn’t hyperbole to say that Final Fantasy 7 is the quintessential PS1 game, right? I mean, it’s the second best selling game on the platform throughout its entire time on the market, only beaten out by Gran Turismo (another classic, but even with those sales I doubt most would look back to the PS1 and immediately think of it). Despite how popular a title it was at the time, and how embedded it is into the history of PlayStation, neither hot boy Cloud Strife nor any other Final Fantasy, or Square Enix character as a whole, made it into Team Asobi’s Astro Bot. It’s an odd omission, and one you can only assume is down to licensing, but studio head Nicolas Doucet doesn’t have much to say on the matter.
While speaking to Game File (paywalled, via GamesRadar), Doucet had hinted that the team was looking at a potential cameo for Cloud in Astro Bot, but never got approval from developer Square Enix. “It’s difficult to comment on that,” Doucet said. “We really respect the choice of each publisher.” It’s definitely a shame that Cloud didn’t make it in, as I was also hoping for Kingdom Hearts’ Sora to make his way in there somewhere, particularly considering he is the king of all cameos – though I wouldn’t be surprised that even if Square Enix said yes, there might be some issues with Disney somewhere.
At the very least, Astro Bot is getting some more cameos sometime this year, including one from Stellar Blade, and another from the de facto online game of the year, Helldivers 2. These will be completely free, coming as part of 10 new rescue missions, alongside five new speedrun levels too.
