I did not expect a revival of the most obscure 1990s mascot platformer to have moves that rival Mario Odyssey, but that's what the Demon Turf devs are doing

Bubsy isn't really a series that's synonymous with quality, especially after its first and last 3D entry almost three decades ago, but a heavyweight indie team are essentially giving the oft-forgotten mascot a makeover with platforming moves to rival Super Mario Odyssey.

Bubsy 4D was announced at Gamescom 2025 as a collaboration between rights owner Atari and Fabraz, the banging indie developer behind one of the best modern platformers, Demon Turf, and its really exciting open-ended sequel, Demon Tides, and barely resembles the awful Bubsy 3D in terms of platforming chops.

After its pretty funny announcement trailer, Fabraz founder Fabian Rastorfer began posting a torrent of clips showing off that, no, the trailer wasn't deceptively cool. The game is just darn cool. The below tweet shows Bubsy 4D's first level getting beat in a minute or so, with the player chaining moves mid-air like Mario to cover massive distances before rolling to the finish line thanks to momentum that'd make Sonic jealous. (It looks just as fun when you're not aggressively flying through, too.)

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The exciting details don't end there, either. "Up for a challenge? In the special 'Nine Lives' mode your save gets wiped if you get hit more than nine times across the ENTIRE game," Rastorfer revealed on social media. "Good luck!"

Bubsy's humor seems intact all these years later, too. One of the game's unlockable outfits even has Bubsy's, urmm, valuables hanging out with a pixelated blur carefully in place to protect our eyes. Plus, the bobcat will talk directly to you via the menus. "You're pausing the game now? Why? Is it snack time?"

GamesRadar+'s Oscar Taylor-Kent wrote that "Fabraz is in a great place to continue to push the medium forward with fluid jumping and smart level design that empowers player creativity, which is exactly where the space needs to go to avoid falling into the same trap of clunky shovelware that diminished the genre's standing in the past." Hear, hear, hear.

Check out the other upcoming indie games of 2025 and beyond.