The first game I see at any conference sets the tone of the entire event, which is why I was cognisant of the fact that I chose to kick off my time at GDC 2025 by checking out a collection of Bubsy remasters. Accolade’s infamous platformer series needs little introduction at this point; it has been the butt of YouTube criticism for over a decade. Bubsy 3D is considered one of the worst games of all time, while the other titles for systems like SNES, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, and Atari Jaguar vary wildly in quality.
Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection from Limited Run Games and Atari bundles every released Bubsy game together into one package, creating the definitive preserved version of this franchise for anyone whose curiosity is piqued by this infamous slice of platformer history. While kicking off GDC by playing Bubsy 3D might not have been the most glamorous kickoff, seeing a preserved, enhanced version of the games (with features like widescreen) in action and speaking to the developers behind me reaffirmed how deserving this bumbling gaming mascot is of a release like this.
Every game is somebody’s favorite
Re-releases like Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection tend to happen because someone on the development side is really passionate about the game. In this case, Limited Run Games producer Audi Sorlie is a staunch defender of this infamous bobcat. As I played through the different games in this collection, Sorlie was full of knowledge about the smallest intricacies of each game. He went on to recount how discovered the game in EGM as a kid and thought it stuck out due to the Saturday-morning cartoon-like aesthetic and expansive levels.
He’s particularly disappointed by how the infamy of Bubsy 3D has sullied the overall view of the series. “We shouldn’t just go back and say that because this infamous game is what it was that the entire franchise was a cynical cash grab,” Sorlie says. “ We should evaluate everything in full context, and I’ve always felt that about games, and Bubsy has been the poster child of that for me. “
Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection does just that. The package contains every Bubsy game released throughout the 1990s so you can play them all for yourself and form your own opinion. It also includes a museum featuring various assets and interviews to provide more color to this series’ history. Some games have even received slight enhancements. Outside of the rewind mechanic that obviously makes things a bit easier, boost mode fixes some of the frame rate dips of the originals. For Bubsy 3D, Limited Run Games even added a widescreen mode and is exploring further enhancements.
Bubsy 3D is still terrible, but having a slightly wider field of view and playing a level after playing the other games in the collection certainly captivated me in a way that I never expected to be in that first appointment of GDC. Bubsy might be more infamous than famous, but he’s getting a collection on par with amazing franchises like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Street Fighter, and Rocket Knight.
It’s a collection made for people who like Bubsy by someone who truly loves this character. As Sorlie recounted how Bubsy revitalized his life and career, I became more excited for Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection than I ever expected to be.
“When we got into the end of 2010s, I unfortunately fell into a deep depression and left the industry for a little bit,” Sorlie says. “[Digital Foundry’s] John Linneman asked ‘Do you want to do a video together?’ It was right before April, so I was like ‘Well, the only idea I have is I want to do a Bubsy video’ and he told me we can do that for April Fools. Nothing’s funnier than if we put up a Bubsy video on April 1 that’s an actual, genuine documentary about Bubsy, so that’s what we did.”
“It really saved my life because, as I said, I was not feeling good at that time, and the outreach from that documentary was such that it made me really want to do this again. When I finally found my pep again and found my step back directly from that documentary and its response, Joe [Modzeleski, Development Director at Limited Run Games] and I started talking and working together. The natural conclusion to that: Why don’t we do a Bubsy collection?”
Bubsy in: the Purrfect Collection is in development for PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
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