Game of the Year award contender nominated for Game of the Year at 2024's Game Awards, in such illustrious company as Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Metaphor ReFantazio, and Balatro.

But lest you think you'd already experienced everything the year's best platformer has to offer, Sony announced that Astro Bot will be getting a free holiday update in a post on the official PlayStation Blog. The update is expected to be out tomorrow, December 12, 2024, at 6:00 PM PT (9:00 PM ET, 2:00 AM GMT). The update includes a single, winter holiday-themed level, Winter Wonder, featuring snow-covered rooftops, a gargantuan, ribbon-wrapped tree, and a jolly figure in red driving a flying boat pulled by a reindeer.

The Winter Wonder Update Is The Latest Great Astro Bot Addition

What To Expect From Astro Bot's New Level

The Winter Wonder update focuses on a single level of the same name, which will be available to most Astro Bot players starting on Thursday. This is a post-game level, designed to be tackled only after finishing the main campaign - in fact, players can only access it after they've beaten the rest of Astro Bot. However, the update will remain free to all players, and is expected to remain available even after the holiday season is up, so don't worry about rushing through the rest of the game just to play it.

According to the PlayStation Blog and the image posted above, Winter Wonder will contain tons of festive surprises for players to discover. That includes special presents, as well as unique, presumably Christmas-themed, Astro Bots for the player to recruit and collect.

Unlike certain other levels, Winter Wonder is designed to be totally family friendly - specifically, that it won't be as hard as some other Astro Bot levels. Although the game itself is totally PG (or more specifically, E10+), Astro Bot has gained some notoriety for its difficulty, especially when it comes to earning the Platinum trophy. Ultimately, the goal of this update is to spread holiday cheer with a fun, creative series of challenges, not to push players' skills to their absolute limits.

This isn't the first free DLC to come to Astro Bot, which has already had a couple runs of post-launch content updates. Previously, Astro Bot devs Team Asobi put out five individual speedrun levels - one a week from October 17 to November 14. Each of these posed a unique challenge, requiring players to optimize their strategies to complete the level as quickly as possible. These levels came along with ten new bots to unlock.

Our Take: Astro Bot Deserves Its GOTY Nomination

Astro Bot Is 2024's Biggest Surprise

Whether or not you think it deserves to win, I think we can all agree that Astro Bot's GOTY nomination is more than deserved. If nothing else, it's the most creative platformer to come out this year, and a lot of fun to boot. It's a worthwhile addition to any PlayStation 5 's collection, a celebration of 30 years of excellent, iconic PlayStation games.

For many, playing Astro Bot is also a nostalgic experience, and not just because of all the PlayStation character cameos. As a mascot-centered platformer, it feels like a game from a bygone age, apart from all the flashy PS5 tech it shows off. It avoids many of the pitfalls of modern monetization, like battle es and paid DLC. It prioritizes a cute, colorful, effective art style over hyperrealism. And it's just plain fun, without any dark patterns or forced grinding.

The Astro Bot series began as a series of tech demos for PlayStation products, beginning with The Playroom, a launch title included with every PS4 sold.

And if all the delightful features it included at launch weren't enough, Team Asobi continues to impress with the regular addition of new, free levels, geared at introducing new ways to play the game. For these reasons among many others, Astro Bot deserves its laurels.

Source: PlayStation Blog