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Gamereactor's David Caballero had an itch he wanted to scratch ever since The Game Awards 2025: to learn more about Bradley the Badger, one of the most celebrated announcements of Opening Act of the show. Here its co-game directors from Day 4 Night give us some exclusive insight!
"Hi Gamereactor friends, so I had this itch I wanted to scratch even before Christmas, which was to learn more about Bradley the Badger, which was introduced at The Game Awards in the pre-show (Opening Act), and it was definitely one of the most interesting and exciting projects shown at the show."
"So first of all, thank you so much for joining us, Davide and Christian.
I'm so excited to finally be able to learn a little bit more about the project, so thank you so much.
What can you tell me, how did you guys feel with that crazy good reception that you guys enjoyed after the pre-show?
You want to start or I'm starting?
You start, Davide."
"So I was tense, I was scared, we didn't know where our trailer was, if it was just before the show or inside the show, so we were just there holding the chairs and waiting for the trailer to be out, and honestly when we listened to the reaction of the public inside the event, it was already phenomenal.
It was like, oh my God, people are having fun, they are laughing, so it cannot be wrong."
"But then just after we went out and we started reading articles, people sending us messages, it was super heartwarming.
So what's going on in this world?
At first we see a little bit with this poster, a little bit about Dreamwoods, but then it turns into Budgerborne, Cyberbudger, The Last Budger, so what happened here?
Is this some early build of a world that is not fully completed and we have to fix it?
What can you tell us about the lore behind this idea?
Well, clearly we don't want to tell you too much about the lore at this point in time, and we really want the players to discover the story themselves, but you're not far off from what's happening here."
"Yes, there is certainly a collision of a few different unfinished game worlds here, and I promise that everything will make sense once people are playing the game.
And we are basically creating this game as the love letter from us, both to the games that we love playing and the genres that we think are big and important and meaningful in the industry, but also the people that make the games."
"It's a love story to the industry itself, to the creative process, to what it means to create something and put it out there, what it does to you.
It's also a little bit, if you will, autobiographical of the things that have happened to me and Davide in our 20 plus years career.
I don't want to be too specific. I don't want to age ourselves too much."
"I would say that whatever your hurdles are, sometimes they become very good memories.
So there is a part of that in what we are doing as well.
Fantastic. So perhaps instead of the game itself and what's going on inside this video game world, perhaps you can tell me a little bit more about how it came to be."
"As you just mentioned, Christian, is this something that you were thinking about for many years?
Is this something that you planned more recently, that you guys met together and said, listen, we need to put all these ideas and this homage and these tributes in a sort of action platformer with crazy mechanics?
What can you tell me about that story?
You want me to start, Christian?
Yeah, you start with the making of, even if it's a little premature."
"Well, honestly, in a way, it's a game that we always wanted to do, even if we were not fully conscious about that.
But as Christian said at the beginning, me and Christian knew each other since a very long time.
In Ubisoft Milano, we met and we worked together, even if on different projects at first.
And then we got separated because I left Italy for a while."
"Christian left Italy forever because now he's in L.A., I'm back in Italy.
But we always remained in contact. And one day I sent him birthday messages.
And because of that time, I left already, almost left Ubisoft, I was about to leave Ubisoft.
Jokingly, Christian said, we should do something together. And I say, why not?
And after that, it's a roller coaster of events up till today."
"And the message here is always wish people happy birthday.
Fantastic. I mentioned briefly the crazy mechanics that we witnessed in the trailer for Bradley.
He can scale up and down, he can transfer himself.
And I guess, correct me if I'm wrong, some of the abilities are related specifically to the worlds we are visiting and to the homages or the tributes we're going to be visiting."
"Or they are more, and how do you balance this?
They are more like you gain more and more abilities of this type and then you can combine them.
And then you guys have to balance that to work out with every situation, right?
What can you tell me about this?
Yeah, for sure. All the mechanics that we invented, we want them balanced."
"And we want to make sure that the players are enjoying them in whatever scenario they are.
But it's very hard to tell you right now in which way we are going to progressively give those mechanics in the end to the player.
What is important to say is that the game we have in mind is completely systemic.
So once the player will have the power, they will be able to use it with full agency."
"And it's not like, oh, now you have to do that little bit of level design and then you don't use it anymore.
Because we decided everything. No, it's the opposite of that.
And second, you want to add something, Christian, on that?
The only thing that I think it might be meaningful to add is that all the powers are inspired by things that game developers can do."
"They're really fun. Obviously, we didn't pick the most boring, you know, "sign an NDA" ability that we do have.
That's the final boss.
Yes, that might be. But we picked things that we thought would also really be fun in a sort of sandbox-y, freeform game.
And so, you know, there is that element as well."
"There are three environments or settings that I've mentioned, which, of course, reference back to some of the games we know and love.
Modern classics, we could say, such as Bloodborne and The Last of Us, and Cyberpunk (2077).
Is there any other setting or game that you would like to tease now that you guys are going to be referencing here?
I would say that more than specific video games, we are inspired by genres, right?
Fantastic."
"So we are inspired by medieval places. We are inspired by zombie apocalypse.
And there will be even more that players will have to discover, for sure.
But it's mostly the genre that we want to depict, because at the end, the world is full of beautiful video games.
So we are not just pinpointing one specific thing."
"Yeah, we don't want to leave anyone out.
Okay, so you want to reference several genres that inspired you and that are close to you guys.
But this is, at its core, it's an action platformer, as we've seen.
So what do you think about the moment in time, about the timing?
We've seen some 3D platformers coming back as of late."
"It is a beautiful time, if you guys agree, with Astro Bot showing something different.
And first level with PlayStation coming back.
And Donkey Kong Bananza last year doing something also experimental and crazy and different, as you guys are doing.
So how do you feel about the moment in time?
I don't know when you guys are planning to release, but I mean coming up with this idea and presenting it to the world right now."
"To be honest, I don't think it was part of the equation of the things that we discussed when we decided to do this game.
In which moment of time are we?
Because overall, we are quite crazy and we like to do what we like to do.
And what we wanted to do was a game that was directly referencing to what we loved in the past."
"But merge that with completely modern mechanics that are not directly relating to the video games of the past.
But they are a reinterpretation of what we would see in the future.
In a way that other people, hopefully, they are not doing as we are creating them.
So that was our intention."
"To add that flavour of what we loved with something completely new and crazy.
Fantastic.
Thank you so much for your time, guys.
Davide and Christian, grazie mille."
"I'm looking forward to learning more about Bradley the Badger.
You guys let me know when, but we are looking forward to learning more.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, David."
