# How Astro Bot Breaks the Fourth Wall – A Video Essay [How Astro Bot Breaks the Fourth Wall](https://youtu.be/nFlGhgdu3sc?si=fvUkvxSLSK-PLGYz) <div class=iframe-container> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/nFlGhgdu3sc?si=ylJo-G9a6VtgAah2" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> I beat *Astro Bot* back in January. This credits sequence has been stuck in my head ever since. Granted, I kicked the can of making this essay for far too long, especially considering this is my shortest essay to date. I needed to ship this one though and I am quite proud of it. As always, there was so much I wanted to do and so much I did that I'll cover in the behind-the-scenes post in a week or so. Readers of my [[Memory Card]] newsletter already know how much of a struggle I have had making this one. Check out the [[How Astro Bot Breaks the Fourth Wall Credits|credits]], should you so desire, along with the [soundtrack](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxCxW3Sbhy5ZRJI8wfhGrJD3UJGPdjCRw&si=ydxbb0KMyei7dJAO). Thank you for watching and reading. I hope you enjoy. # How Astro Bot Breaks the Fourth Wall – Script Shortly after the Christmas of '24, I tossed one of my gifts inside my shiny, expensive PS5 Pro and pressed play. I really wanted to push the power of PlayStation, so of course I chose that year's hotness—*Astro Bot*. A few levels in and it doesn't take long to see why Astro won Game of the Year at the 2024 Keighleys. PlayStation has created their Nintendo EAD-style team. The gameplay is in perfect harmony with its developers' goals and designs. *Astro Bot* is a true testament that, sometimes, the old ways are still the best ways. The credits sequence, in particular, just crushes it. Team Asobi serves up some *WALL-E* class sadness followed by sheer joy. After the credits rolled for real and the grin grip on my face loosened, I got to thinking "why did those final moments hit home?" And my first thought was "I think it is because Team Asobi just broke the fourth wall." Before I explore *why* and *how* I think they broke the Fourth Wall, I should explain what *is* the Fourth Wall and what does it mean to break it? According to good ol' Wikipedia the Fourth Wall is > "...a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. And to break that imaginary wall is... > "violating this performance convention...This can be done by either directly referring to the audience, to the play as a play, or the characters' fictionality. The temporary suspension of the convention in this way draws attention to its use in the rest of the performance...A similar effect of metareference is achieved when the performance convention of avoiding direct contact with the camera...is temporarily suspended.... Breaking the Fourth Wall is, I think, always a good time. And when it is done well, it can become legendary. Over the course of my 13ish hours of playtime, *Astro Bot* had me channeling [my inner Rick Dalton](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/72/57/597257f4e580e7619b3415af405484a3.gif) more times than I could count. Fourth Wall breaks can have quite the range though. Sure, you've got you winks and nods (*TTYD*). Then there are other incarnations of interactive credits (*Melee*). Sometimes you can break the wall based off your actions (*OW*) in an easter egg-y sort of way. The great ones—the ones that stick—take advantage of your expectations (*GoW:R*) or can involve the physical world (*MGS1*). In the realm of video games though, it's not always accurate to think of it as a wall per se. If it is a wall, it's one that you can walk through; one that morphs with the game, the developers, and the player. Back in the late aughts, this dynamism of the Fourth Wall in video games caught the attention of Senior Lecturer in Games & Interactivity Steven Conway who described it more as a "Magic Circle." > "...the video game does not break the fourth wall, but instead relocates the fourth wall entirely, moving it behind the player, as they are now placed by the designer within the fictional world of the game. > "By encompassing the technical features of the video game console, and in doing so creating a new, novel form of interaction with the game, the developers again are not breaking the fourth wall, but instead expanding the magic circle to include the hardware features of the console." Let's take that example of the Psycho Mantis fight from *Metal Gear Solid*. That encounter alone takes the circle and expands it out into a mind bending experience by reading your memory card data, vibrating the controller, faking signal loss on an old tube TV, and forcing players to *switch controller ports* to beat the boss—spectacular stuff—but I'm not here to gush (too much) about *Metal Gear Solid*. *Astro Bot*'s credits sequence is a prime example of expanding the Magic Circle too and I want to explore how Team Asobi did it. It all starts with this set-up and psych out. After the extravagant boss battle with the generic alien obsessed with a PS5 CPU, he snatches our beloved lil robot to suck him into the black hole—very take the hero down with the villain scenario. Despite the other bots trying to pull our protagonist free, Astro sacrifices himself for the good of his friends. To sell the illusion that this is for real, the "credits" start rolling. We get a sad mix of Astro's theme, the logos start gliding by, heck, even the Team Asobi logo sports a sad Astro. This is all in the name of priming the emotional pump. From the bombastic finale in the battle, the devs want to bring the heart rate down before "one more thing." Team Asobi wants to pull you in by your heart strings and this cutscene puts them in tune. They use this psych out as a transition into, what I have been calling, their *WALL-E* moment. Astro is spit back from the depths of space in a very reverse Team Rocket sort of way and, as a result, is in dire shape. Your collected community of Bots springs into action and begins offering up spare parts to restore Astro to life. Instead of being a cutscene, Team Asobi wisely puts it all on the stick, mirroring the PS5 rebuilding moments after each previous boss fight. The player knows immediately what to do and therefore can sink in emotionally through engagement. They are pulling you into the walls of the game instead of keeping you outside as just an audience of one. They are also re-establishing expectations. You've done this at least four other times. While emotional, this is a logical conclusion to the grand adventure. A lesser game would have stopped here. As you get ready to poke that little heart inside Astro, you might not be expecting just one more thing. The DualSense zooms by, the music swells, and that's where Team Asobi can truly surprise us all one more time. The level title card flies in just like you've seen before and the joyous rush of "one more time" takes over. The level is a Greatest Hits of *Astro Bot*; from mechanics to PlayStation consoles. Everything is here. The slickest bit is that every time you land on a PS1 Memory Card, the name of a developer flies up in signature-PlayStation-colored voxels. The makers of the game are being honored in the game as a key part of the game. You find yourself paying more attention to each name as it comes up because you are active in making them appear. You are on platforming auto-pilot, soaking in the celebration of the game, the developers, PlayStation's history, and, of course, yourself. Seriously. You deserve thanks too, because without you playing the game, there is no credits sequence; no one to enjoy all the nods, references, and acknowledgements—without you, there is no history to nod to, refer to, or acknowledge. Your interacting with the game is what let the developers bring you inside. Without both the devs *and* you, there is no game, there is nothing to celebrate, there is no Magic Circle to be brought into. The Fourth Wall or the Magic Circle cannot exist and, therefore, cannot be broken, without an artist *and* an audience. There is no magic to experience, no reactions to savor, no fabric of spacetime to rip, no gods to battle, no rawks to be hawked, no memory cards to be read without both the thoughtful, intentional, passionate designer and the eager, engaged, skilled player. For the circle to expand and for these moments to be remembered, studied, and celebrated, we all have to come together and *play the game.*