Bubsy 4D - One Dimensional (Review)

Bubsy 4D

Released: May 22nd, 2026

Developer: Fabraz

Publisher: Atari

Systems: PC, PS5, Switch/Switch 2 (reviewed), Xbox Series

I’ve always guessed that past perpetrators of Bubsy games have used the series’ embarrassing reputation as a reason not to care, trying to get away with churning out hack garbage because “that’s the joke.” Bubsy is memes, so why even try to make a credible game? Shockingly, the latest installment takes a different tack - putting in a shred of effort, thus surpassing all estimates. 

It really is tempting to say Bubsy 4D isn’t as bad as one might expect, but when expectations are low enough to require an excavation team, it’s hardly a substantive assessment. Sure, compared to that agonizing 2019 game where Bubsy wouldn’t shut the fuck up about pilot’s licenses, things have definitely improved. When compared to most other things, the latest Bubsy game looks more like a Bubsy game, which is a really bad look for a Bubsy game. 

This would have looked amazing in the 90s.

Just contrast the aesthetic concept against similar ones. Most of 4D’s environments are supposed to be made from crafting supplies, with cardboard buildings and patchwork platforms. It looked gorgeous when Kirby’s Epic Yarn did it over a decade ago, but here it’s flat, textureless, and sterile. Maybe it’s not fair to compare this to a Nintendo game, even if it is from 2010, so feel free to look up Fur Fighters: Viggo’s Revenge instead. It’s a quasi-obscure game from 2000 that successfully did with its graphics what Bubsy has attempted to do, and I reject any notion of the PS2 game looking worse. 

When I describe the visuals as sterile, I am in fact clueing you in on how I feel about every single piece of this production. Worse than looking empty, Bubsy 4D simply is empty. It’s not much of anything at all, despite showing initial promise with a control scheme that nicely facilitates platforming fluidity. While I was pleasantly surprised by how Bubsy handles, my positive first impression soon gave way to a particularly pointed suspicion when I saw how little else was going on. See, a significant portion of gameplay was made with speedrunners in mind, and I can’t help but meet this design choice with a very cynical chicken/egg question…

Does Bubsy 4D have no content because it’s built for speedrunning, or is it built for speedrunning because it has no content? 

I have an idea of which it is.

It’s an empty bowl even by the series’ own low standards, and to such a degree that I can confidently say Bubsy 3D had more going on! Levels possess the uncanny emptiness of a liminal space with none of the comfy charm, managing to be boring even when you’re trying to beat one in 90 seconds. Each glorified obstacle course is light on both obstacle and course, so I can’t help but feel you’re encouraged to rush through them because there’s nothing to see if you stop.  

Problem is, rushing to the end is completely incongruous with the more traditional collectathon gameplay also present. It’s an ill-advised attempt on the game’s part to have its cake and fuck it too, but you have to slow down and explore places if you want to unlock abilities or cosmetics. I dare say this is how most mascot platformer fans are going to want to play it anyway, which only makes the speedrunning aspect look more like an excuse for how bereft of substance it otherwise is.  

Bubsy 4D is a series of tubes.

What few enemies populate the world appear almost as a concession to genre expectations. There are no puzzles or anything else that might add a bit of variety. While a few areas are cleverly designed, they’re outnumbered by long stretches of barren road and nebulous chasms with crude floating platforms. Players planning to find those collectibles shouldn’t get too excited, since environments are simplistic enough that “exploration” is too fancy a term for the hunt. There are only two types of item to find - Blueprints that unlock abilities and Yarn Balls that buy character skins - and the list of potential purchases is short indeed. 

Every few stages you’ll be graced with a boss fight. They’re so rudimentary they're insulting, eclipsed in action and complexity by almost anything you could’ve played in 1997.  

More like a boss fart.

Tragically, there is some real potential hiding in the foundations of this interactive void. Bubsy’s been designed for flexible air control with shades of Super Mario Odyssey, able to combine his pounce, glide, and double jump in any order to cross significant distances. Wall jumps and Sonic-style homing pounces add to the repertoire, coming together to form occasional flashes of clever environmental challenge. Any move can immediately cancel another, making for responsive acrobatics that are quite fun to pull off. 

What I love about the controls is that despite how easy it can be to overshoot a jump or whiff a landing, it’s easier to course-correct. Such is the flexibility of control that you can survive even critical airborne failures with a frantic application of maneuvers. Given how the physics are nowhere near as conducive to elegant play as the control scheme, this ability to fix mistakes with ease is very welcome. 

Sometimes the gameplay almost feels real.

Bubsy can also turn into a hairball, and if I hadn’t used up my cynicism quota I’d say the frequent similarities to Sonic are a further attempt to justify a speed-over-substance approach. In any case, 4D’s aforementioned physics make the spherical form a rather unwieldy prospect. You don’t really feel like you’re rolling so much as sliding, and the many empty stretches of meandering road exist entirely to take advantage of this at the expense of your patience. 

Mostly though, Bubsy’s hairball ability ensures large amounts of square footage can be given over to vapid half-pipe sections. The campaign’s absolutely full of really long rolling segments that appear multiple times in every level, emphasizing just how few ideas this game has to show for itself. It’s audaciously reliant on pipes and tubes to pad out what’s already a brief adventure. 

Bubsy gets more pipe than I do.

Perhaps the most depressing example of creative flimsiness comes in the form of a completely wasted narrative premise. It flirts with the idea of Bubsy as an aged nobody who’s dismissed as embarrassing by his niece and nephew, which is a perfect (and relatable) way to portray him. Sadly, any further developments to this nucleus of a story come in homeopathic amounts, because the game simply isn’t interested in saying anything more than “lol Bubsy.”

That’s the problem, isn’t it? Even when more effort than normal has been put in, Bubsy is still a joke that you have to pay for, a punchline with a price tag. Bubsy 4D stops more than a kilometer short of an extra mile compared to the orange bollock’s usual outings, going further than usual to produce a tolerable but starved experience. If only the effort spent trying to validate a lack of material was spent on material, this could have been something. Maybe not something good, but something.When you get down to it though, “lol Bubsy” is the ultimate reason for its existence. As usual. 

What could possibly go... ugh.

Bubsy 4D is the best Bubsy game ever made.

5/10