The universe is full of many weird and wonderful things, such as Bubsy the Bobcat coming back for a second time. After the largely piddling pair of The Woolies Strike Back and Paws on Fire! in the late 2010s, Atari SA acquired the rights to Bubsy in 2023 and immediately sought to do something more serious with him. This started with 2025’s Purrfect Collection, which gathered all of his original games complete with a mind-boggling amount of bonus material that showed a greater reverence for the character.
However, it would soon be followed by a surprise announcement of a new 3D platformer, created by Fabraz of Demon Turf/Demon Tides fame! It’s easy to assume this would be a quick reskin of the developer’s best known work like Bubsy’s previous comeback attempts, laced with cynical ironic jokes about Bubsy’s infamy. But Bubsy 4D manages to do its own thing, resulting in a solid (if perhaps too short and easy) adventure that manages to be charmingly funny and one of Bubsy’s better games.
It’s been some time since Bubsy’s last adventure, and he’s in no mood to go on another one when the Woolies arrive to steal sheep for their wool. So he lets them go about their business and all seems well, but then those sheep return as technologically augmented Baabots to plunder the precious Golden Fleece. With new dudes and a crew of his relatives and acquaintances dragging him along, it’s up to Bubsy to recover the Golden Fleece and stop the Baabots’ schemes.
Bubsy 4D sees you running, jumping and gliding your way through a series of linear 3D levels to grab the Golden Fleece at the end. Bubsy’s a bit more durable this time around, being able to take three hits from enemies or hazards before tapping out, and with a bunch of new moves to get around. You can extend your airtime with a double jump and a lunging pounce (which can also be used to attack enemies), jump between walls and briefly scramble up them, and then there’s the new hairball mode.
With a press of the shoulder button, Bubsy expands into a massive ball that rolls and bounces around, allowing him to crash through enemies at great speeds. This is mainly used in various half-pipe tunnels and winding tubes, but its ability to pick up momentum can be integrated into your regular moveset if you come to grips with it. Bubsy is by far the most capable he’s ever been, with an ease and responsiveness to the controls that allows you to overcome many situations, but just that bit squirrely enough that it’s never guaranteed.
You can chain your aerial moves if you need to cross a gap, use your hairball’s momentum to make greater distance, or perhaps scramble up a wall and find another way around. While there’s only so many options afforded due to the straightforward obstacle courses that make up most levels, it’s nice to have the ability to play through at whatever degree of skill works for you. If you want, there’s even more moves to obtain through the hidden blueprint in each stage.
Bring these to the shop run by troublesome twerps Terri and Terry, and you can unlock extra abilities that can be toggled on and off. These can be new moves such as a high spin jump, upgrades to your base moves like a faster pounce dash and greater hairball momentum, or conveniences including an added hit point or not sliding down walls anymore. They’re not required to beat the game, but they provide extra wiggle room if needed and can blast the doors on the level design wide open.
If not, it’s worth exploring the levels in search of them anyway, since they’re found behind a variety of memorable challenges and secret areas. Exploration is further incentivized by collecting the yarn balls dotted all over the place, which can then be used to buy costumes from the shop. Unfortunately, yarn balls are rather troublesome to collect because you have to be very close to attract them, forcing you to awkwardly double back if you’ve missed a couple and hurting the pacing of stages as a result.
You thankfully don’t need to get them all unless you’re looking to 100%, though it’s possible you’ll want to replay the game a bit since it’s quite short. With only 15 stages, and each one taking roughly about 5-10 minutes, you’ll see the end within a couple of hours. And while there’s a general escalation in challenge, especially if you go looking for the blueprints, it’s quite easy to overcome just about anything with your moves.
It’s a shame since levels do a good job at introducing obstacles and elaborating on them over time, mixing them with ones found in earlier stages, and providing a variety of linear and open-ended areas to keep things interesting. The final world looks like it’ll be the toughest of the bunch with some particularly devious platforming gauntlets, but it dials things back by the end and it feels unfortunately slight. At most, there’s options to make things harder such as a “nine lives mode” where you can only take nine hits across the entire game and even a Bubsy 3D-style tank controls scheme, and you can test your abilities with the quite challenging time trials for each stage.
As is, Bubsy 4D ends up being merely good on the gameplay front. Considering the series’ reputation, that will be enough for plenty of players, so it helps that it gets by on some decent presentation too. The visuals are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the game runs consistently on even the less powerful systems, there’s an admirable progression in level themes based around materials (going from wool to arts and crafts to garbage), and most famously it gives Bubsy a snazzy cute new design that makes him resemble a stand-up comic.
However, it’s let down by rather wonky animation that often comes across as workman-like, with only a handful of middling death animations and some unappealing poses (especially when Bubsy starts falling from a great height). Considering the small size of the development team, who were also working simultaneously on the much vaster Demon Tides, perhaps it’s unfair to criticize the animation work. But as a Bubsy game, it’s the one area where it falters compared to the rest.
There’s plenty of jokes as to be expected, with a bunch cheeky fourth-wall gags and even suggestive humour but also leaning into the characters’ relationships. Numerous scenes pit Bubsy’s wavering self-confidence against indifferent villains, Oblivia’s subtle antagonism, Virgil’s outright disdain, and Terri and Terry’s mix of apathy and slight genuine affection. It’s chuckle-worthy enough, and thankfully written concisely enough to not overstay its welcome. Most of it’s quite optional too, since it largely comes from seeking out characters during levels.
This is carried along by some fairly good voicework, carried primarily by Sean Chiplock who gives Bubsy a more grounded, beleaguered tone compared to the abrasive swagger from previous games. Appreciated touches such as including various takes on the same lines and all manner of strange vocal noises help to sell Bubsy as an endearingly dopey chatterbox who still carries on despite everything going against him. Combined with the satisfying jazz funk soundtrack provided by Fat Bard, and you’ve got a game that sounds as nice as it plays.
It’s hard to say whether Bubsy 4D is indeed the best game in the series. In some ways, it lacks the cartoon charm of the original and even Bubsy 3D’s “there’s nothing else like this” appeal. But it certainly doesn’t wallow in complacency, when it so easily could have done for easy attention. That it tries its best despite everything is just as worth appreciating as the game itself, and one worth playing for that alone. Whatever comes next, at least Bubsy 4D bothered to try at all.
