Nicolas Doucet, the Creative Director behind 2018 PSVR hit Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, is now head of Sony PlayStation’s Japan Studio, it’s been announced.
An HR announcement from Sony itself confirmed the news this weekend. Doucet now carries the title Japan Studio Studio Director. The developer previously headed up Japan Studio’s ASOBI Team, which developed Astro Bot as well as its predecessor, The Playroom VR. The Playroom launched for free alongside PSVR in 2016 and featured several mini games, including one that grew into the full Astro Bot game.
We’re hopeful that this means Japan Studio’s future involves yet more PSVR projects. To this day, Astro Bot remains one of the best PSVR games available. The third-person platformer is bursting with charm and innovation, offering an absolutely delightful and powerfully immersive gameplay experience. In fact, the game currently sits at the top of our list of best PSVR games.
There’s plenty of potential for an Astro Bot sequel, for example. In fact, scrapped plans for the original game included local multiplayer, which we’d still love to see integrated into another title.
Of course, Sony’s PlayStation 5 is on the horizon, set to launch this holiday season. It’s very likely that Japan Studio is working on projects for the new console; could it perhaps also be preparing VR games to launch on the device? We know PS5 will support the original PSVR and we also know Sony is prototyping a potential new headset, but we’re yet to see a PSVR 2 formally be announced.
What would you like to see Sony’s Japan Studio work on next in VR? Let us know in the comments below!
