Games

Astro Bot is stuffed with little robot guys cosplaying as gaming icons from across PlayStation history, but the game's lead has now opened up about the one essential character that's missing.

Sure, Astro Bot's 300 collectible bots don't cover every single notable game from the platform's three-decade run. Twisted Metal and SOCOM aren't included, for example, despite being PlayStation staples for a time. But the big boys are all here. Whether that's Sony's own God of War, Ape Escape, and Shadow of the Colossus - or famous faces from other companies, like Tomb Raider and Crash Bandicoot.

Since the joyous platformer jumped onto store shelves, however, more than a few players have complained that Cloud Strife is missing, in spite of how monumentally important Final Fantasy 7 was on the PS1. In fact, publisher Square Enix has no presence in the game, with Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, and Nier all omitted, which is particularly strange since the game's free predecessor Astro's Playroom at least makes reference to Cloud's big buster sword.

In an interview with Game File, Team Asobi studio head Nicolas Doucet hinted that the development team had eyed up a Cloud cameo that never got approval from Square Enix. "It's difficult to comment on that," Doucet said. "We really respect the choice of each publisher."