Watch as Astro Bot Speedrun Tears Up PS5’s Super Polished Platformer
Astro Bot is a game with a high degree of polish, with very little in the way of bugs or glitches — but that doesn’t stop speedrunners from cracking it open.
IGN recently posted a new episode in its Devs React to Speedruns series, and it features a trio of Team Asobi developers watching as speedrunner Bdud5 blitzes through stages as fast as possible.
Bdud5 currently holds the second-fastest time in the Any% category (reaching the end of the game as quickly as possible regardless of total completion). In the video, we get to watch his attempts at select levels, showing off some seriously impressive skips and techniques.
If you’re curious, the Any% record is just over two hours, so it’s not a short speedrun — that’s because Astro Bot does require you to collect certain numbers of Bots in order to unlock later areas, so you can’t always beeline it to a level’s goal.
However, as evidenced in this video, there are plenty of corners that can be cut.
The Wako Tako boss fight can be skipped — as long as you know where to swim and find the exit — and there are some brilliant platforming tricks and sneaky shortcuts pulled off in the likes of Downsize Surprise, Slo-Mo Casino, and Hieroglitch Pyramid.
It’s a super impressive watch, made all the better by the delighted reactions from game director Nicolas Doucet, animation director Jamie Smith, and art director Sebastian Brueckner.
