Square Enix definitely understands how their fans are thinking, and they understand what expectations and culture they have created with their fans, who play on PlayStation. They no longer want to signal that PlayStation is Square Enix’s ‘home’ anymore. At the very least, it is not their only home.

While there are no Square Enix characters in 'Astro Bot', Team Asobi's head Nicolas Doucet has stressed he "respects the choice" of the studio to keep its I.P.s out of the game.

Astro Bot has more cameos than you probably realised there were PlayStation games, but there's one game that feels conspicuously absent: Final Fantasy 7.

Astro Bot isn’t just a brilliant adventure platformer, it’s also an homage to PlayStation history. Sometimes that can make it feel like a Funko Pop branding exercise, but it’s also fun to see all of the nods to important games and characters from the platform’s past.

Team Asobi has finally explained the lack of Square Enix characters in Astro Bot PS5, and it's a response we expected.

Nicolas Doucet, the director of Astro Bot, says that he kept Japan Studio in mind while developing the wildly popular platformer.

Team Asobi says that while "almost 100%" of its most-wishlisted iconic Sony characters made it into Astro Bot, it finds it "difficult to comment" why Square Enix characters were missing. Talking to journalist Stephen Totilo,

Astro Bot's director reveals why a certain highly important PlayStation cameo is missing from the critically-acclaimed 3D platformer.