Is it funny that Bubsy 4D exists? Is it a joke? I thought it was when Atari announced it last year. The first trailer didn't look good but then, that only makes sense: it was a trailer for a Bubsy game, and Bubsy games aren't good. Bubsy 3D is notoriously one of the worst games ever made. With renown like that, it'd be silly to retire the IP.
But then I looked at the studio responsible, Fabraz, which has developed several well-received platformers: Demon Tides has "overwhelmingly positive" reviews on Steam, and Slime-san is one of those deliberately grotty-looking 2D platformers that was very well received in 2017, back when action-oriented platformers were the rage.
So it took me a while to come to terms with the fact that, despite the studio's pedigree, and despite being a passable but by-no-means-brilliant 3D platformer, I still don't like Bubsy 4D. Actually, I kinda hate it.
Bubsy 4D's flaccid fourth-wall-breaking humor feels purchased straight from a comedy asset store.
If it resembles anything it's a Sonic game, except Bubsy's reliance on speed and mellifluous movement is wedded to a more complicated moveset. This genital-less cat is highly manoeuvrable: he can double jump, leap and glide, and if I chain these abilities together I can spend a lot of time in the air, or else scramble to impressive heights. There are also more subtle movements, like quickly doubling back mid-sprint and then jumping to execute a higher-than-usual jump.
Controlling Bubsy feels like tossing around a sack of trapped kittens at first. He has a habit of bouncing away from walls after he's grabbed them, which can make chaining together jumps and scrambles extremely frustrating at times. But eventually I realised that most of the problems I had with Bubsy's movement were my own fault: by the fourth level I understood that he's a kind of hybrid of Sonic and Super Mario Odyssey.
Bubsy's furball form is harder to come to grips with. This turns Bubsy into a bouncy high speed pinball cat, and at first it's appallingly awkward to handle. Then I realised I can jump to rapidly turn corners. Sometimes I can even switch back to Bubsy's four-legged form to extend my reach with a leap and a flutter, before gracefully returning back to ball mode. If I overshoot a corner, there are usually ways to correct the course.
Bubsy 4D loosely adheres to the "easy to pick up, hard to master" dictum, but it really feels like garbage until you've mastered it. Like Sonic, momentum killers abound, making death especially frustrating. Returning to earlier levels with a better understanding of techniques makes them feel more fun to play, but Bubsy 4D isn't really good enough for me to want to do that.
Why? Because the vibes are terrible. Bubsy 4D channels that over-exaggerated Saturday morning cartoon tone that might have been fun in the '90s—back when this game's target audience were actually kids—but which feels grating, if I'm honest, draining in 2026. I think Fabraz' approach to 3D platforming is pretty robust, even sophisticated at times, but in Bubsy 4D, when it has to rub shoulders with an especially moronic form of nostalgia—the ironic revisiting of maligned cultural artefacts—it's buried beneath a crust of cringe so thick that this could be a new height in 3D platforming gamefeel and I still wouldn't want a bar of it. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?
Bubsy 4D's flaccid fourth-wall-breaking humor feels purchased straight from a comedy asset store. "Isn't it convenient that there's a golden fleece at the end, every single time?" Bubsy reflects aloud at one point on his end-of-level goal. When you pause, Bubsy pipes up: "Paws menu, get it?" This is what we're dealing with here: videogame characters noticing they're videogame characters. It's the kind of wit that had already trickled down to primary school playgrounds in 1999.
The level design is pure nonsense as well. I'm not expecting Far Cry Bubsy, and elaborately bonkers and unreal world design is something I admire about early 3D games. But Bubsy 4D's levels just look like a bunch of random obstacles strung together. Long meandering furball tunnels course over flat oceans that don't even splash when you fall into them. Free-floating platforms flip and flap towards meaningless summits with ghastly views. One particular level, perhaps deliberately, looks like the carpet in a '90s cinema complex.
Why are 3D platformers so susceptible to awkward '90s reminiscence? Is the genre good for anything else? Even best-in-class modern example Astro Bot is exhausting advertainment for a first-party legacy Sony's spent the last decade abandoning. It's basically a paean to mascots. Crash 4 and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart are both fun but at the mercy of that infantile '90s cartoon mascot vibe.
I'm not asking for a gritty 3D platformer, but I'd certainly like one that does something even vaguely new with its presentation. There's no reason 3D platformers can't have the tonal range of modern 2D platformers, where for every Super Meat Boy there's a Celeste or Hollow Knight or MIO.
There are examples: Pseudoregalia and Solar Ash come to mind. Psychonauts 2 has some interesting ideas while still falling afoul of mascot whimsy. Fabraz' own Demon Tides is right there, and Hazelight Studios' co-op games are essentially setpiece-laden 3D platformers. If you don't mind a first-person perspective, Neon White could qualify, as well as climbing games like Idols of Ash or Peaks of Yore. The 3D platformer doesn't always need to channel '90s cereal box nostalgia. You don't need to play this stupid new Bubsy game.
