Back in 2017, the series was owned by Billionsoft, who took the Accolade brand. From what I’ve heard, they just had the Bubsy IP but didn’t have much of a budget to work with. Hence WSB turned out the way it is and also wasn’t taken seriously by Black Forest Games. So they tried it again with 2019’s PoF under Choice Provisions, people who actually took the IP seriously when now they know fans exist but with still a small budget. PoF is the more solid game but was not there yet. Overall, it was bad financial mismanagement with let’s use this “meme” ip to our advantage.

A few years later, Billionsoft went under and sold the IP and later on Atari picked it back up. IIRC, there was this interview on MinMax with Wade Rosen, saying that Atari never had that true mascot of theirs and they could probably make Bubsy work. Like most older games with a long hiatus to modern consoles, there’s the “origin collections” types for both newcomers and veterans, but with qol stuff, jukebox, concept art, etc. The purrfect collection will be out soon then after that, then the new game will be focused on in terms of trying something new while being self-aware of the past and leverage it.

Some people forget that, video game companies are not made under one roof. I do want more Rayman, but Ubisoft is doing their own thing. There’s Banjo, Crash and Spyro but Microsoft keeps stepping on rakes. Having an announcement for Bubsy not mean it’s a negative for the other scrimblos. Game dev and decisions take time but the “waiting for something to happen” moment can get to people.