Is There Finally a New Official PlayStation Mascot?

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2024 Game of the Year nominee Astro Bot has raised the question of whether the popular Sony robot character is now the new PlayStation mascot. Since Astro appeared on PS5’s Astro’s Playroom, highly regarded as the platform’s finest game until Astro Bot, the character has been touted as something PlayStation has lacked for a while — a fully-fledged official PS5 mascot.

Does Astro Fit the Bill as the New Mascot?

Astro’s 2020 debut in Astro’s Playroom immediately brought the cheeky, witty automaton into living rooms across the globe. Playing host to an epic journey through PlayStation history, Astro delighted global gamers with its interaction with many past well-known PlayStation characters. Some included Resident Evil’s Chris Redfield, Clank from Ratchet & Clank and Kratos from God of War.

Now, in Astro Bot, the Bot Captain interacts with hundreds of characters from some legendary PlayStation game titles, with God of War and the Resident Evil series again prominent. With characters from Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted, Wipeout, The Last of Us and Metal Gear Solid only a few of these, Astro Bot involves a proverbial blast from PlayStations’s past with this modern classic. 

Astro is in the middle of the melee and is already achieving legendary status, so much so that many gamers see the bot as PlayStation’s first actual official mascot. It’s safe to say that Astro’s Playroom and Astro Bot creators, Team Asobi, never anticipated the original game’s success. The 65-person studio led by Nicolas Doucet wasn’t even known as a game creator. The studio had previously only created VR and augmented reality for PlayStation technological demos.

The PlayStation hierarchy loved the Team Asobi presentation and made the call to package Astro’s Playroom and its adorable main robot character free with every PlayStation 5 console. As a result, Astro reached the homes of every PS5 user, and they loved it. What has happened since cements Astro as the most likely mascot for the gaming giants moving forward. Other game characters have previously been touted as mascots, but never to the same degree.

Which Characters Are Past PlayStation Mascots?

Since the original release of PlayStation in Japan in late 1994, many notable game characters have claimed mascot status for the Sony gaming giant. However, there have been scant pretenders to the PlayStation mascot throne since the burlap sack doll humanoid character Sackboy first appeared in 2008’s LittleBigPlanet — until Team Asobi introduced Astro in 2016.

See how many of these potential PlayStation mascots from the past you recognize:

Polygon Man

PlayStation first released Polygon Man in print ads at the 1995 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles to market the console to teenage audiences. Shortly afterward, PlayStation shelved the metallic purple spike-headed villain, as the character freaked out too many consumers!

PlayStation’s global chief, Ken Kutaragi, felt that Polygon Man misrepresented the brand and its appearance as a mascot ended soon after it had begun. The protagonist only reappeared in 2012, when you might remember it as the last boss in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

PaRappa

PaRappa, a two-dimensional human-like dog, became PlayStation’s first rhythm game icon after appearing as the title character in 1996’s PaRappa the Rapper. You may recall the music video game, recognized as the first in its genre. It involves PaRappa rapping its way through several stages, with game success based on the player’s freestyle rap ability.

Well-received publicly, PaRappa also appeared in Um Jammer Lammy (1999) and PaRappa the Rapper 2 (2001). It then faded into obscurity before PS4 revived the character in the 2017 remastered version of the original game. Although more recognized as a PlayStation mascot than Polygon Man, PaRappa was overshadowed by another character released simultaneously.

Crash Bandicoot

You’ll surely remember the popular Crash Bandicoot from the 1996 PlayStation game of the same name. The much-loved gibberish-spewing mutant Australian bandicoot was likely PlayStation’s most iconic character for a while after the game’s release. 

Game developer Naughty Dog, later responsible for the successful Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001) and The Last of Us (2013) under the Sony Computer Entertainment banner, afforded PlayStation exclusivity to Crash Bandicoot on release. However, this exclusivity expired in 2001, and the beloved PlayStation mascot moved on to new pastures.

Spyro the Dragon

Spyro is an enthusiastic young purple dragon designed by Insomniac Games and released as a Playstation mascot for younger gamers in 1998. PlayStation released it in opposition to Nintendo 64’s host of popular characters. 

If you were a Crash Bandicoot fan, you may remember Spyro subsequently appearing alongside Crash in several titles beyond the PlayStation label. Still, Spyro the Dragon remains the cocky 3D dragon’s most famous hit. 

Toro Inoue

Doko Demo Issyo, which translates to Together Everywhere, has been a successful video and now Android game since 1999. You may not recognize it, as the first of these virtual pet titles was released in Japan only. In the first game, players meet Toro Inoue, a ‘pocket people’ cat that the gaming giant made a Japanese Sony mascot from the turn of the millennium.

In reality, Toro is PlayStation’s longest-running and most successful mascot but is also the least known outside its mother country. You might recall the strange little white cat in Street Fighter X Tekken and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale — the Japanese icon Toro Inoue.

Kratos

Kratos first appeared in PlayStation 2’s 2005 flagship, God of War. Since then, the game’s chief protagonist has appeared in four further games in the God of War franchise. You’ll likely most recently recognize the PS4 and PS5 title, God of War Ragnarök, from 2022. Kratos also returns in the free-standing Ragnarök expansion, Valhalla, released in late 2023.

Is Kratos a worthy mascot for PlayStation? Considering the character’s longevity and enigmatic status, detractors would be hard-pressed for a valid rebuttal. Astro’s emergence and overwhelming popularity provide an argument to the contrary.

Sackboy

You remember Sackboy from an earlier mention, don’t you? The main protagonist from LittleBigPlanet and the other five full-length games in the series returned most recently in the 2020 3D spin-off, Sackboy: A Big Adventure. Giving the action figure its own title may have been an attempt to elevate it to mascot status, but the emergence of Astro seems to have put paid to that idea.

Although Sackboy is much-loved in its own right, timing is everything. There is no competition between the two characters, with PlayStation 6 on the way. If Sony had decided on the move earlier, Sackboy might have adopted the role before Astro’s overwhelming emergence.

Is Astro Worthy of Official PlayStation Mascot Status?

You will hold your own opinion, but besides Kratos, alongside Toro Inoue in Japan, no PlayStation game character has taken the mantle of mascot anywhere close to the levels achieved by Nintendo’s Mario, Namco’s Pac-Man or Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog. 

Sony Interactive Entertainment is paving the way for Astro to carry its mascot flag into the future. Could the Captain of the Bots finally be the mascot that Playstation has been looking for? You decide, but the signs are certainly promising.