There’s a sadder read of that, too. Some have expressed that Astro Bot can feel like a graveyard for dormant franchises, but I feel a bit more optimistic about it. Astro Bot exists today because of the PlayStation series that came before it, and Team Asobi pays tribute to that fact in a way that suits its original series at this moment.

I imagine that Astro Bot was an IP licensing nightmare for Sony, but this month has also proven that there are ample ways for video games to be meta without directly referencing specific games. The Plucky Squire, from All Possible Futures and Devolver Digital, is a prime example of that. It’s a game all about celebrating creativity and the art that inspires people, and that’s reflected in its design. Almost every kind of gameplay featured within The Plucky Squire lovingly pulls from something else.