Namco Drops "Splatterhouse" Publisher

Things have been pretty bumping in the horror game world these days. "Left 4 Dead" is huge, "Resident Evil 5" is on the horizon, and "Dead Rising (Wii)" and "Dead Rising 2" are on the way. Although there hasn't been a ton of chatter about the upcoming next-gen version of "Splatterhouse," I've been quietly excited about the premise, more so than the screens and video that I saw. After a period off the radar, "Splatterhouse" is back in the news, but not in a good way. Apparently, Namco wrested all remnants of the game, still very much in development, from 3rd party developer Bottlerocket Entertainment, who seem to be having serious problems both related and unrelated to this project.

From Kotaku:

As is often the case with film, re-writes, new hands on deck, and shifting gears this late in the game development cycle is usually a very bad sign. It seems like Namco wasn't happy not only with how the game was turning out, but how quickly it was being completed. If the game is going to be completely rebuilt from the ground up, it better be awesome and not be delayed for too long, because I'm not sure anyone cares enough about this game (besides me) to really wait it out and see. Alternatively, if they are just going to put some polish over what they were unhappy with and call it a day, I don't think that scenario will play out well either. I'll be following this one closely, if only as a "Splatterhouse" fanboy with unrealistic hopes.

"Namco Confirms Ditching Splatterhouse Developers" via Kotaku