People Seem To Think Bubsy The Bobcat is in Sonic Forces

A small clip of a trailer for Sonic Forces that released Wednesday during a Nintendo Direct has Twitter buzzing. What could pawsibly go wrong?

It’s just the small things that get the Internet going nowadays.

Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct went over a few games coming to the Switch, including this holiday’s Sonic Forces.  Throughout the trailer, we saw clips of Modern Sonic and Classic Sonic (running through what appears to be a warped Green Hill Zone where the water has turned into sand).

The video then cuts to a silhouette that can be difficult to make out, and then we moved on to other Nintendo Direct things. What’s strange about the trailer is that it wasn’t a blue hedgehog that made everyone freak out; but rather, the prospect of that silhouette belonging to a certain orange bobcat standing in the middle of a catastorophe.

Yes, that orange bobcat.

https://twitter.com/CyBrid101/status/852293510225162245

People on Twitter were quick to point out the possibility that the character could indeed be Bubsy the Bobcat, a nearly-forgotten mascot from the 90’s when everyone wanted to strike it big with “cool and hip” animal mascots like Sonic.

Aside from awful cat puns and just generally being an obvious knockoff, the Bubsy series lasted just for just four games; including 1996’s infamous Bubsy 3D on the original PlayStation. Developer Accolade folded around 1999, and the license fell into the hands of Atari before their bankruptcy in 2013. Publisher Tommo, Inc. currently has rights to the franchise as of 2014 and released Bubsy Two-Fur on Steam a year later via their Retroism division.

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Tommo aren’t strangers with Sega either. In fact, they actually have an exclusivity agreement to put out mobile products bearing classic designs from the Genesis and Saturn eras. 

Could Sega possibly have reached another agreement to bring Bubsy back from the dead and slap him in a Sonic game? Detractors are pointing out that Bubsy not wearing shoes or gloves completely disproves the theory, but that also doesn’t mean that Sega wouldn’t take a small bit of liberty with the character.

Another thing that fuels the rumor is a recently translated interview from Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka in the latest edition of Famitsu. In it, he explains that the third character is an “unexpected character” and that it’s not the Boom version of Sonic. He also said this character also plays a big role in the game’s plot, and “embodies the overall features of the game.” 

So let’s say Bubsy got into the game. How would he play? Well, that’s a question I really don’t have an answer for. If I were to guess, Forces would turn into a pure 3D platformer as opposed to being based purely on speed and momentum. Precise jumping, using items to maybe solve a puzzle or two would likely be some of the ideas thrown around. He certainly would be one of the most unexpected characters that could possibly show up in a Sonic game, so there’s that.

It’s really quite far-fetched to think about, but we also said that about many other things in video games. I completely get that this seems like a joke, but we all said the same thing about a Final Fantasy VII remake, and that’s actually happening. I, for one, don’t put anything past anyone in the gaming industry.

Some other theories suggest this may be Fang the Sniper (or Nack the Weasel), an antagonist from the Game Gear game Sonic Triple Trouble, while others think it’s just a completely new character entirely. My bets are still on it being some weird or alternate form of Sonic that is a result of Dr. Eggman possibly screwing with the series timeline or universal structure in some form or fashion.

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As of now the always meme-tastic Sonic Twitter account and Facebook page have remained silent on the issue, so maybe they’ll let this event one simmer to get people talking about Forces. And who knows? Maybe we’re due for another claws enounter of the furred kind.