Bubsy is an unlikely franchise to be receiving a new sequel in 2026.

And yet, Bubsy 40 arrives this week following one of the worst received platformers of all time, Bubsy 3D.

But is Bubsy 3D misunderstood?

Did it just have the unfortunate timing of being a 3D platformer with perhaps the wrong answers on what a 3D platformer should be?

And coming out the same year as Super Mario 64 and then just becoming a punching bag? 3D platformer with perhaps the wrong answers of what a 3D platformer should be, and coming

out the same year as Super Mario 64, and then just becoming a punching bag, a centrality for

internet memes? Hmm. And why make a sequel when you could make everything? I had an opportunity

to go digging for answers. I had a chance recently to chat with two of the developers on

Bubsy 4D, Fabian Rastifer and Ben Miller, to ask a simple question why. It of course has a

nuanced answer, but it allowed me to get into a lot of questions I've been thinking about

recently that are both in and around Bubsy. Obviously, Janet and I are exploring what is a platformer?

I ask that question here, and I intend to ask out of anyone that I talk with in the future

that works in and around platformers.

Why make a sequel to Bubzy knowing that the long history and baggage of that franchise is going to have people

looking at the thing you make, especially Fabras, who these are demon turf, demon tides.

These are studios, a studio, rather, working on kind of one of those avant-garde forms of

platforming at the moment, expressive platformers in which there is a huge hyper focus

on movesets to the point where in Bubsy, yes, Bubsy, the 90s platformer series, has a

moveset option when you go when you pause the game because there's so many things you can

do as Bubsy. It is just trying to do something

different. Why apply that to Bubsy? What did the studio learn when they went back and played the

games? What surprised them about how we think and talk about Bubsy in meme form rather than what

...