Director of Astro Bot pays tribute to Mario at TGA 2024!

The The Game Awards 2024 certainly brought many debates, surprises, and news. One of the surprises that, in my opinion, was not so expected, was Astro Bot coming out as the big winner of game of the year, also winning the award for best direction.

In addition, we had a speech from the game director, Nicolas Doucet, who took the opportunity to settle some discussions in the community about the platform game, which was previously seen more as a Nintendo style game, rather than a Sony style game, if you know what I mean. In his speech, Doucet took the opportunity to pay homage to Super Mario, saying that the Nintendo's great exclusive would be one of the inspirations for the Sony game.

Although his studio Team Asobi is under the control of Sony, he acknowledged Super Mario Bros. and Nintendo for driving his passion and inspiring the whole team. Here's what he had to say, all the while carefully avoiding actually saying the company's name.

"Last but not least... and I didn't plan to say this, but I'll say it anyway, you know platform games, you know PlayStation 30 years, and we made a platform game that is great - it's very nostalgic and new at the same time, but let's not forget that even before PlayStation there were people making platform games. I remember I was a child on Christmas of 1989, and I got a gray box, there was a game packed, it was called Super Mario Bros. and it was really, really great - so we're in Japan, we're in Tokyo, they're in Kyoto, but I want to pay homage to the company that really put platform games and showed us innovation and quality consistently, and inspired us to really make the game we made... And I managed not to mention them, did you notice? But you all know who they are"

Astro Bot is definitely an excellent game, and even though it may differ from some opinions, it still deserves its awards!