By Somehow the snarky feline Bubsy has clawed his way back from a radioactive cryo-nap spanning decades, preparing to headline Bubsy 4D by Atari and Fabraz—the indie team that gifted us the excellent Demon Turf. It all looks charming unless my primordial fear reflex kicks in. Atari CEO Wade Rosen apparently battled the same impulse, telling GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025 exactly how this improbable follow-up to 1996’s hated Bubsy 3D materialized.
“There were early hints of a grassroots buzz around Bubsy,” Rosen remembers. “We re-acquired the IP—as part of a bundle of a hundred titles—and the next morning, Good Morning America spent two full minutes dissecting nothing but Bubsy.”
“They didn’t even call us; they just waved a press release around and gushed.”
Bubsy 4D – Official Reveal Trailer – YouTube
Flash-back to 2023. In the broadcast, the GMA anchors cheerfully revisited the infamous Bubsy cartoon axed after a single airing, quoting a critic who declared it “horrible start to finish—Bubsy’s voice is so grating it’ll murder your neurons. Still, nostalgia sells, folks. Maybe this kitty’s nine lives aren’t up yet.”
Rosen took the hint. “I started wondering, is this one of those characters everyone recognizes?” The wave of memes finally shattered his resistance—“Okay, fine, I guess there really is something here. People genuinely love this disaster.”
“Still, we agreed right away: if we’re reviving him, we do it properly.” Translation: find a studio that could absolutely stick the landing.
Rosen adores PS2-era mascot platforms (“I love the genre in general, but that console generation just nailed the vibe”), and when the team dropped Demon Turf in his lap, he responded, “Yep, these are our people. This energy fits Bubsy.” Fortunately, Fabraz was on board too, and the partnership has been “an absolute delight”—as heavenly as a bobcat can get.
Caught every reveal from the Future Games Show at Gamescom 2025?