Who?
Bubsy appeared in 1993, as a platformer game for SNES developed and published by Accolade. Later it got ported to Sega Megadrive. And a year after to Windows 95. The first game was followed by the second based on the first. Then Bubsy moved to 3d and the history of goofy bobcat stretched to this day. Something not every character can brag about. But only original trilogy was created by people who were at its sources.
Not a single game among seven main releases in the franchise became popular. Each game was considered mediocre at best. But with time Bubsy acquired a cult status and despite expectations and sometimes even hopes didn’t die. Bubsy 4D as the latest release appeared on the digital storefronts in 2026. We have a separate article about this game.
The franchise changed hands several times and several studios tried to make good Bubsy games. Aside of first two releases and the latest Bubsy 4D they all flopped with less than mediocre ratings.
The current owner of Bubsy is Atari SA (Infogrames in past). Atari SA nowadays is mostly responsible for indie game releases and remasters of old games. From time to time they act as a publisher and release games on Steam. Bubsy 4D was one of such games.
Goofy protagonist
Bubsy is a bobcat. He is the main protagonist of the whole series as the title states. He is goofy and cartoonish and developers clearly tried to appeal to children using humor on the level of loony tuns.
Part of his character – he always fails. For example, Bubsy 3D has two endings and in both Bubsy doesn’t reach his home at Earth. Even if you collected all the parts of the spaceship Bubsy messes up with time traveling and appears on Earth in different era.
Even in the cinematic level intros the main joke is failures of Bubsy. Many people found this humor, if talk in modern slang, cringe. And character to be too childish even for children. But even if humor is quite a personal topic the whole franchise had constant problems with controls and precision of platforming. Even Bubsy 4D is not ideal.
Bubsy is not the smartest bobcat and sometimes do questionable decisions based on his inability to fully recognize the situation. Part of the humor in Bubsy 3D is that smart guys are still losing to him and it makes them even more frustrated.
Bubsy 3D flopped. And after the iterations of the character Bubsy has changed.
Modern version is more mature, slightly smarter and now he fails less. What’s funny, Bubsy 4D doesn’t mention the endings of the Bubsy 3D and just skips this part of the story with time travel or in alternative ending up on a random planet after unfinished rocket malfunction.
Bubsy is still mocked for his intellectual capabilities as part of his personality. He doesn’t look cool, but pretends to be. And modern Bubsy is now closer to Naruto in the first 240 episodes than to former self, but without rasengan or special attacks. Furries around him don’t acknowledge his abilities and consider them as simple luck.
Bubsy perceived as a loser who is somehow wins, sometimes not even funny, awkward, not all the time positive and sometimes even acts like a coward and I think this makes him more believable and unique.
The inspiration
I won’t surprise anyone if I say that Bubsy was inspired by Sonic The Hedgehog. Michael Berlyn, the designer of Bubsy, played Sonic 14 hours a day during a whole week to find inspiration for a new platformer. Bubsy was even supposed to wear shoes but this detail got omitted in the final version.
Michael worked in the game development industry as designer since 1981 and had enough experience for big claims. First game was supposed to be as fast as Sonic but as deep as Mario.
Bubsy’s catch phrase “what could possibly go wrong”, that he says all the time was something that development team used a lot during the game making process.
Funnily enough thanks to Nintendo’s censorship Bubsy wasn’t able to get high on catnip. Original idea was replaced with banana peels. Nintendo always ruins it. Catnip idea was never utilized in the future games.
Games, marketing and reception
Bubsy was a well marketed brand at first.
People waited the first game fed with promises. Because it was marketed as something better than Sonic or Mario. Bubsy should have become new beloved by everyone mascot. Bobcat literally won the title of the “Most Hype for a Character of 1993” in one of the American magazines.
At CES the same year Bubsy leaped out of a sack to welcome spectators.
Lottery took place with ultimate winners meeting developers of the game. Lottery included prizes like shirts and plushes (I wish I had original Bubsy plushy. Sadly finding one feels impossible).
Bubsy fanart drawing contests took places in other countries.
Despite game receiving mostly positive comments, IGN called the game “mediocre” and a “pale Sonic imitator”. Mostly because of the physics and level design.
Bubsy II had less promotion and, probably, hopes from the Accolade’s side and basically got the same treatment as the first game. The main problem was the lack of originality.
Atari Jaguar got its own Bubsy game called Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales. This time it was developed by Imagetic Design instead of original developers and published by Atari Corporation. This time game had almost no marketing. Atari in its original self was already a dying company. Jaguar was discontinued a year after the release of this game. Jaguar’s Bubsy got very limited promotion.
Bubsy 3D was special among Bubsy games because it was one of the three platformers presented on CES 1996. The timing was terrible because Bubsy competed with Crash Bandicoot and Mario 64.
Still, Bubsy 3D is remember as one of the three games of 1996 that inspired modern platforming genre. It was somewhat innovative as 3D platformer, but mediocre at best due to unresponsive controls and weird visual design.
For 20 years after there were no games with Bubsy. That’s how devastating Bubsy 3D appeared to be for the franchise.
In 2017 developer by the name Black Forest Games made a new Bubsy game that was published by UFO Interactive Games. Game had almost no marketing and received negative reception. Game almost received “Worst game” award from Giant Bomb’s Game of the Year 2017 award.
UFO Interactive Games didn’t learn the lesson and published another Bubsy game this time developed by Choice Provisions.
Bubsy: Paws on Fire! got slightly better reviews but still flopped. Some magazines like TechRaptor even wished Bubsy games to stop being made.
For almost 10 years there were no Bubsy games but Bubsy is one of the mascots that seam to always return. Maybe because it makes some people angry and grabs attention.
This time Bubsy 4D was made by Fabraz and published by Atari. Marketing strategy was simple – release the videos where Bubsy embraces awkwardness of his own history and promises different and better experiences.
After almost 30 years of the franchise history original players who even remembered Bubsy became adults, got families and their sense of humor changed as well. Instead of making another goofy game like the first six installments Bubsy 4D tried to be more adult.
Bubsy himself inside the game calls the game “family friendly” during the jokes on the edge and tries to stop other characters from pumping the games age rating.
Game received slightly higher than average reviews. IGN gave 7/10 this time. I would give 6/10 because game has technical problems the developers could have definitely fixed. And the game is simply short.
Steam’s rating gives a different perception. At the moment of writing of this article, out of 234 projects published by Atari, Bubsy 4D takes 18th place by player’s reception with 86.45% of positive reviews.
Will we see new Bubsy games?
Certainly yes. Bubsy is one of this unsinkable mascots that doesn’t even require good games to continue receiving new games.
I believe awkwardness of Bubsy games supports the charm of the franchise.
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