PSVR exclusive ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission has been making waves among critics and players alike since its release at the beginning of the month. The game now ranks among PS4’s top titles—VR or otherwise.

Update (October 15th, 2018): It appears reviews are still rolling in, as Metacritic now puts ‘Astro Bot Rescure Mission’ as the 5th highest rated PS4 game. Based on 38 critic reviews, the game still holds a 90 out of 100 rating, although it has since moved past ‘Monster Hunter: World’. The original article follows below:

According to popular review aggregator MetacriticAstro Bot Rescue Mission has averaged a review score of 90 out of 100 among 36 critic review, and 9 out of 10 among 207 player reviews. In both categories that marks the game as being ‘Universally Acclaimed’ by Metacritic’s standards.

The game has risen to the #1 rated PSVR title of all time, according to Metacritic, and also one of just a few PSVR titles to hold a 5 out of 5 player rating on the PlayStation Store.

Looking into Metacritic rankings for all PS4 games (VR and non-VR) helps contextualize this achievement.

Among PS4 games released so far in 2018Astro Bot ranks 6th, in the company of titles like God of War, Divinity: Original Sin II, and Shadow of the Colossus [2018 remake].

Looking at all PS4 games everAstro Bot ranks #23, alongside titles like Monster Hunter: World (2018) and Fez (2014).

SEE ALSO
New PlayStation VR Bundles Now Available: 'Creed + Superhot' & 'Astro Bot + Moss'

Worth noting is that Astro Bot reviews by critics are in line with player ratings too, whereas some games see a significant difference between the two. It isn’t clear exactly how Metacritic breaks tied critic scores in their rankings, but if they opted to use the player review score as the tie breaker, that would bump Astro Bot up to the #5 slot for PS4 titles released in 2018 and to #17 among all PS4 titles.

While PSVR certainly has a handful of other quality games, Astro Bot seems to have achieved new levels of interest, garnering reviews from major gaming publications—rather than just smaller or VR-specific publications—including The Washington Post (9/10), IGN (9/10), Game Informer (9/10), Eurogamer (‘Recommended’), and Variety (unrated). For our part, Astro Bot is the first VR game we’ve given a 10 out of 10, for reasons we elaborate on in our review.

For those who haven’t been convinced, Sony has announced plans to launch an Astro Bot demo on October 16th. The company is also selling a PSVR bundle including both Astro Bot and Moss [Amazon].

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • JesuSaveSouls

    Not my type but cute.Not everyone likes open world sandbox surreal sims.It is like mario for nintendo,sonic for sega and astro for psvr.

    • impurekind

      It’s not open world. It’s level based and generally quite linear.

  • Sandy Wich

    I hope it’s backwards compatible with PSVR2 because that’s where I’ll be gettin it if I can XD

    • gothicvillas

      You mean Astrobot 2?

    • Massimo Antonini

      so you skip this generation why? PSVR destroyed all my love for classic gaming because is really going to another dimension, another world, escape the reality…. all the ones like you that “wait”, are responsable of the VR slow grow, and have no idea what wonderful VR train are you losing…. tomorrow world could be destroyed by meteor shower and you was “waiting” for something…. now the price is good and totally worth, better a PSVR than a high-end flat pc gaming…. trust me

  • impurekind

    Based on all the reviews I’ve seen, I would have expected it to be right up near the top and probably first.

    Edit: Oh, it’s 6th of all the PlayStation 4 games, not just VR. Yeah, that’s pretty great.

    • AtmosContagion

      6th of PS4 games in 2018; article mentions it’s like 23rd of all PS4 games.

      It’s still very good for a platformer and it isn’t even utilizing VR anywhere near it’s full potential for this gen.

  • A great game, all deserved

  • Tron Sorbo

    Astro bot is the top rated game over at VR Game Critic as well (https://vrgamecritic.com/game/astro-bot-rescue-mission), seeing you are VR experts I’m surprised you only mention metacritic. The site is great resource to reference.