Team Asobi’s game has been a huge hit on PlayStation 5 in a short time, and while it has made guest appearances in a number of IPs and franchises, one particular title and its main character have been left out…
Astro Bot was released on September 6th, just over three weeks ago, and has performed well both in terms of sales and critical acclaim. Its strength is the number of guest stars. There are a total of 173 VIP bots, and it’s official that more will be coming to the game in the future, as new maps and cameos have already been announced for sometime in the fall. But it’s hard to see how the three decades of PlayStation history can be so rich, but someone is missing!
In an interview with Game File, Astro Bot director Nicolas Doucet talked about why Final Fantasy VII’s main character Cloud Strife was missing from Astro Bot. Team Asobi had plans for a guest appearance, but Cloud’s appearance was canceled for reasons that are “difficult to comment on. The studio respects the decision of each publisher, which suggests that Square Enix did not want Cloud to appear in this form. This is strange, because Square’s RPG was the first real blockbuster game on the PS1 back in 1997! In fact, there was a reference to Final Fantasy VII in Astro’s playroom, as Cloud’s Buster Sword weapon made an appearance.
But this is not the only case. Square Enix has a lot of IPs, and none of them are in Astro Bot! There’s a lot to mention from the Japanese publisher: Dragon Quest, Chrono, Life is Strange, Kingdom Hearts, Star Ocean, but none of them made it into the PlayStation 5 exclusive. It seems that Square Enix thought Astro Bot was childish and didn’t want to work with Team Asobi.
Hopefully Square Enix has changed their minds now. It’s about time.
