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 Metacritic, Astro 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 2018, Astro 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 ever, Astro Bot ranks #23, alongside titles like Monster Hunter: World (2018) and Fez (2014).
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].
