While The Game Awards had plenty of big announcements during its 3-hour runtime, the TGA Pre-Show was not without its surprises. One of these was the reveal of Day 4 Night Studios’ debut title, the charming, wild-looking action-adventure platformer Bradley the Badger.
The game’s announcement press release describes it as a “new action-adventure that features exploration, traversal, and mind-bending, freeform puzzles. It blends original play mechanics with live-action sequences in a satirical storyline that is a commentary on videogames.” You read that right! Bradley the Badger will feature live action sequences, with actor Evan Peters (X-Men, Tron: Ares) not only voicing Bradley, but playing him in live action.
In Bradley the Badger, you play as the eponymous Bradley, an iconic mascot from several hit platformers, who finds themselves lost in strange, unfinished worlds. Help Bradley save Dreamwoods and his friends, even if that means facing a life-changing revelation the likes of which Bradley could never imagine.
Fortunately for Bradley, they come into possession of The Kit, the development kit used to make the very worlds they find themselves in. This allows our hero to interact with and alter all of the unfinished assets in each level in a myriad of ways, from creating your own paths and platforms to making walls climbable and objects explosive. With his platforming talents and the Kit, Bradley fights bosses, finds secrets, and uncovers a mystery spanning worlds that will feel familiar to players.
It’s the debut title from Day 4 Night Studios, an Indie game studio co-founded last year by Mario Rabbids director Davide Soliani and Red Dead Redemption writer Christian Cantamessa, the latter describing Bradley the Badger as a “love letter to games.” The legendary video game composer Grant Kirkhope is also involved with the game, lending even more star power to this new IP.
“We wanted to make something that would reignite us, something capable of taking us back in
time to when, with younger eyes, the whole world of videogames seemed to shine,” said Soliani, “and we wanted our mechanics to be the perfect bridge between the past and the future.”
Ed Vries, co-creator of Xbox and founder of 1Up Ventures, which is helping fund Bradley the Badger alongside Krafton, described it as “the most creative thing we have seen in quite some time.” Day 4 Night Studios is currently looking for a publisher for Bradley the Badger, and we imagine that won’t take long.
Mixing the colourful world and character design of classic 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, the creativity and ingenuity of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and the irreverence and fourth-wall-breaking humour of Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Bradley the Badger wears its inspirations as proudly as its hero wears his stripes, and we can see why.
Bradley the Badger is currently slated for PC via Steam, with the team exploring additional platforms and consoles. There is no release date for the game at the moment.
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