PlayStation quietly killed an entire franchise without you noticing

With all the excitement surrounding last week’s State of Play online event, Sony may have quietly canceled a major PlayStation franchise.

Some of the key revelations during the State of Play event were a new gameplay trailer and a release date for the Silent Hill 2 Remake developed by Bloober Team as well as a new trailer and release window for the Until dawn Remastered for PlayStation 5.

Check out the Astro Bot trailer below!

The other big news was that popular platform Astro Bot is finally getting its own full standalone release. Up until now, Astro Bot games have usually been playable demos bundled with a PlayStation console or PSVR headset as a fun way to showcase a ton of cool features.

The Astro Bot games have always been fun, which is impressive considering they are free. The demo that came with the PlayStation 5, Astro’s Playroomhad reached new heights in terms of gameplay, graphics and immersion. For many, it ended up being one of the best platform games of this generation (again, this is a free game).

So it was only a matter of time before Sony increased its popularity with the announcement of Astro Bot during the recent State of Play. Of course, this is good news for PlayStation and platform fans, but unfortunately there also seems to be sad news from the Astro Bot discover.

The sad news concerns the PlayStation exclusive series Knack. The first game to be released was a launch title for the PlayStation 4 and Sony had hoped that talent would be a system seller. Unfortunately, that was not to happen, as there were frequent complaints about uninspired gameplay, a boring story, and irregular difficulty spikes that would frustrate players.

Developed by Japan Studio, the same team that developed the Astro series, on the aggregate website Metacritic, talent scored a very disappointing 54. Sony had hoped to correct the errors with Crack II in 2017 and although there were some improvements like the ability to play cooperatively, it wasn’t enough to save the series and we haven’t heard anything since.

But it seems as if during the Astro Bot Gameplay reveal, Knack’s fate may have been subtly revealed. As pointed out by Twitter user Radec, a screenshot from the trailer shows an Astro Bot appearing to mourn the Knack protagonist in tiny pieces.

This is by no means an official confirmation, but it might be the closest thing to it. It’s not like Sony is going to tweet “Knack is dead” on Twitter, so perhaps this is a subtle way of reminding the remaining fans that Crack III probably won’t happen anytime soon (if ever).

Astro Bot will be released on September 6, 2024 exclusively for the PlayStation 5.

Photo credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Topics: Sony, PlayStation, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5