Mascot platformers are back with Bradley the Badger, but absolutely not in the way you’d expect. Bradley the Badger, announced Thursday during The Game Awards, is an action-adventure game partly inspired by Who Framed Roger Rabbit with its mix of live-action and video game graphics, and part homage to/part satire of beloved video games, including Bloodborne, Cyberpunk 2077, and The Last of Us.
Bradley the Badger stars Evan Peters (X-Men: Days of Future Past, American Horror Story) in both live-action segments and as the voice of Bradley, who is presented as the former star of a once-popular game series, as he finds himself lost in strange new worlds.
In the game’s first trailer, we see Bradley visiting game worlds with titles like Badgerborne, Cyberbadger, and The Last Badger. More importantly, we see Bradley use video game development-inspired tools to move through those worlds. This tool is called the Kit, which allows the badger to manipulate any unfinished asset he comes across just as a game developer would, completely transforming how players approach puzzles, traversal, and combat. With options like adjusting scale, changing gravity, and other editing tools, Bradley will be able to solve problems in unconventional ways.
Bradley the Badger comes from Day 4 Night Studios, the team founded by a group of former AAA developers who’ve worked on titles like Red Dead Redemption and Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. With a storyline heavily inspired by the team’s own experience making games, Christian Cantamessa, co-founder of the company, said in a press release that Bradley is “part love letter to video games and part satire of them.”
“Games are an art form and this is a story inspired by our adventures making them,” Cantamessa said. “From the inner turmoil of self-doubt to the joy of building worlds, we set out to transform those experiences into a game that anyone can get lost in.”
“We wanted our mechanics to be the perfect bridge between the past and the future,” Day 4 Night co-founder Davide Soliani said in a statement. This can definitely be seen in the game’s two choices of tools — alongside the high-tech Kit, players will wield a good old-fashioned frying pan, which he’ll sometimes use to fight enemies. Between this dichotomy and the game’s overarching artistic vision, Bradley the Badger seems like a compelling hybridization of different mediums, mechanics, and genres that certainly makes it a title to keep an eye on in 2026.
Bradley the Badger is slated for release on Windows PC via Steam. Day 4 Night is “exploring additional platforms and consoles,” according to a press release from the studio.
