News – Infamous Gaming Character Bubsy Returns in Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back

How has this even been allowed to happen? It’s a question I’ve repeatedly asked myself ever since I saw the announcement. Yet, no matter how many times I check the calendar to see if we’ve gone back to April 1st, I’m left with the realisation. Yes, Bubsy is actually back.

All in all, it’s been 17 years since the last entry in the infamous Bubsy series. That game was Bubsy 3D for the PlayStation, a game widely considered one of the worst games ever made. In fact it was that bad that it also foreshadowed the end of both Bubsy, and Accolade, the studio behind it.

Well, that was until now, as this week in a press release, the newly revived Accolade announced that Bubsy is back once again in Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back. They’ve even brought in Black Forest Games, the team behind Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, in an attempt to turn around poor Bubsy’s fortunes.

“Bubsy: the Woolies Strike Back is an all new Bubsy adventure featuring Bubsy in a bevy of exotic locations as he travels the planet looking for the beloved Golden Fleece. Bubsy must use all of his classic moves and a few new ones to dodge and out bobcat a battalion of Woolies, sharks and bess, not to mention the gnarliest UFO bosses to ever grace a Bubsy adventure.”

As you can see from the trailer above, The Woolies Strikes Back thankfully isn’t taking it’s inspiration from Bubsy 3D, instead returning to the side-scrolling platformer action found in the two 16-bit entries in the Bubsy series. Although, it’s not as though these were classics, as you can see in our review of Bubsy (in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind), the game that introduced us all to the notorious Bobcat.

Just why this is happening is beyond me, and whilst seemingly nobody wanted this, it is the hand we’ve been dealt. Bubsy may be the gaming equivalent of Poochie the Dog, but he’s getting one more chance to win over gamers when Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back arrives arrives later this year for PlayStation 4 and Steam. Whether it’s enough to turn round the fortunes of one of gaming’s most loathed character’s though, is yet to be seen.