Splatterhouse Sequel?

So I'm just wondering...
The game has been out for 2 days now and I know it's a bit early but it seems that most people here are pretty pleased with the game. That being said, who wants to see a sequel done? What aspects could be done better and what could go?

I won't spoil anything but judging from what I know of the game's ending, it's looks like a sequel would deviate from the original Splatterhouse 2. Kinda interested to see where they would go with this. Any other opinions?

I have news regarding the possibility of a sequel, and it's something that not many are going to like. I'll post more about it once the new game has had a chance to sink in a bit more.

I just hope they do less with the metal music, and more with the horror type themes, I'd also like to see the DeadMan Fat in there, the giant Boreworm, possessed teddy, and sludge monsters!!!

If it might have anything to do with Rick not being the main protagonist in a possible sequel, I'm somehow ok with that.

Otherwise, I'd like to see them make another Splatterhouse in 2D, but that's probably just a pipe-dream.

My mind has been wandering from one possibility to another since I finished the game. Though, given the description of the nature of this news, I'm not sure whether I want to find out. :lol

Myself, I would be hard pressed to be excited about a sequel without the characters we've known for two decades. I hope the news isn't something like that, because then it might just seem like Splatterhouse in name only.

Good. The new game's biggest flaws stem from how it was handed from one development team to another.

I think the worst possible thing many of us would hate done in a sequel is that one proposed sequel idea about the post-apocalyptic sci-fi idea that really had nothing to do with "Splatterhouse" other than Rick(wasn't he like a cyborg, or something?).

If a sequel deals with Rick's son, David(inheriting Rick's mask), I actually can swallow that. Or even another "young man who gets bulked up by the mask".

Regarding the ending, I can see a direct sequel stemming from that that's along the lines of the original Splatterhouse 2. I mean, I could see, directly after the events of this one, Jennifer goes missing and leads Rick back to the ruins of Splatterhouse. Dr. West is still alive(by the ending, just missing an arm, and frankly, if he could survive a sacrificial knife to the head, he could survive loosing one arm). I could totally also see them using the same plot idea of the original Splatterhouse 2: Rick going back to retrieve the REAL Jennifer's soul, which is being imprisoned in the abyss.

Though, one of the more far out ideas would probably have the sequel be a prequel, dealing with West's past(maybe taking place in the early 1900s?).

This is exactly what I was thinking. It would make sense, Rick & Jennifer (?) would carry on with their seemingly normal life (if he can't remove the mask, though... what then? And how do they get back 'home'?)

Also... do any of you guys know what that picture was after the credits when you beat the game? It flashed up on the screen so quickly I barely managed to look at it properly?


Now... what we WOULDN'T want... is Splatterhouse 2: THE FIRST PERSON SHOOTER SEQUEL!


nooooo.

Well guys, here's the scoop. Do any of you recall reading that Namco Bandai laid off 90 people earlier this month? It happened, and nearly the entire Splatterhouse team was let go, including Dan Tovar and Dave Wilkins. Yeah, the two guys who came to be the faces of Splatterhouse are both gone, along with damn near everyone else that worked on it. Dave's not in bad shape, since he was basically just hired on for Splatterhouse as far as I can tell - to my knowledge, he has his comic gigs for Marvel plus a bunch of other stuff he's working on, so he's got plenty of work - but Dan was a Namco employee and is now having to search for a job. Any of you that have tried to find work in these economic conditions know what kind of a pain that is.

All this restructuring adjusts the possibility of a Splatterhouse sequel drastically. Downward. Dan seems somewhat optimistic about the possibility of NB reuniting the team for a sequel if the game sells well, but if it doesn't sell well, you can forget that. And these middle-of-the-road reviews, along with people saying "I'll wait until the price goes down to buy it," aren't helping one bit.

I've had another thought about that: since game development has moved back to Japan, that could very well mean that either the Japanese branch picks it up or no one does, even if the game sells enough to warrant a sequel. And since the game appears to be generating no buzz at all in Japan right now, things are looking less bright as time goes on.

At any rate, we're working on a thank you card of sorts to send to Dan, thanking him for what he did and wishing him luck in his future projects. It's not much, but he had the interests of the fanbase at the forefront, and I'm positive that without him, the game would have been BottleRocket's pile of non-Splatterhouse crap. If you'd like to contribute a message to it, send it to me here via PM (along with how you want it signed) and I'll add it ASAP.

That's sad. I really hope the best for Dan and fellow Splatterhouse staffers. They did a great job!

That is so disappointing. Dan, Dave and the rest of the Splatterhouse crew did a phenomenal job in my opinion- even moreso given the condition of the game they were brought in to save. I'm glad to see the game having gotten this far, but it would be great to see it go even further!

man I hope this game does well... An epic sequel, with dan n' dave working from scratch is something I think we'd all kill to see.

Welcome to the moon, strangekid!

Man, that seriously sucks.

Aside from word of mouth and actually buying the games, is there anything else we can be doing to help, Rob?

I guess the other question is, any chance of a Paypal collection to get a little something for Dan, Dave et al?

Oh man... that sucks! Anyway speaking of a thank you card...Last night after playing Splatterhouse I messaged Dan Tovar on Facebook, thanking him for bringing back Splatterhouse and told him that I enjoyed every bit of the game and I would like them to make a sequel, etc....I hope he reads it.
But I would also like to contribute to the thank you card. I'll PM you Dire :)

Very sad news, but not at all unexpected.
The way Namco released this game at this time of the year, head-to-head with several major titles and pretty much without any promotion, is quite telling of their faith in this game.

Well, I did my part. Even though money's a bit tight right now, I purchased the game day one, and even purchased all available DLC (and the Premium Theme for the Xbox 360), fully knowing the game will probably be half the price it is now in a couple of weeks from now.
After 17 years waiting for a new game, it couldn't be any other way. :)

Here's hoping the game sells enough so that a sequel may be greenlit, although I'm not very hopeful. I hope I'm proved wrong, but I don't think it's good news when I discuss the game in another forums, and pretty much everyone else had no idea the game was already out (some were not even aware a new game was being made at all...). :(

I REALLY do hope it sells well and they make a sequel. I mean, it's rare that you have a remake/reboot of anything that captures the essence and feel of the original, yet traversing down a new road without feeling out of place within the franchise context. Usually, with reboots, be them movies or games, you have teams that only take a handful of ideas from the original, but are totally gung-ho for doing something MAINLY new. Y'know, the whole ego trip of "This is MY take on the story. My spin on it! This is how I re-envision it with MY imagination applied to it!". No doubt this reboot was Dan and the others' vision, but they didn't do what many others tend to do, "Damn the classic fanbase in order to try to reach a new fanbase!". They managed to keep true to everything that made the original franchise great, satisfy us classic fanboys, and make it new enough to appeal to any new blood willing to test the bloody waters for a splatting good time! I think that's how reboots should be handled(that's my opinion). No alienation, no ego, and these guys did it right! It really is a shame to see them be let go, because you rarely get a team attached to reboot something with the amount of insight they have. And, the amount of love they have for the fanbase(I mean, they used us as consultants, which kicks ass). They are a rare breed, indeed. :rtfo

I get back from Thanksgiving vacation and hear this and I am just incredibly saddened. I have FINALLY gotten a chance to play the new Splatterhouse and I love it. I love it almost as much as I loved the originals so far. I think the team, including Dan, did an awesome job on this game. I'm really enjoying it and to me, it was my money well spent. This is why I'm so disheartened to hear about Dan and the Splatter team. Damn you economy!! :angry:

BTW if there is some sort of "fund" or if the PayPal idea takes off, I'm 100% in. As far as I'm concerned, a small donation is the least I can do to show my appreciation.

Geeze, there's a part of me that is just so... pissed. We waited all this time for a revival of the series and now it might be gone just as soon as it came. It's like sampling a delicious cake only to say, "This is great! Now I want a whole piece!" and someone saying, "Too damn bad! The cake is gone now."

I'm going to go... mope. :banghead

I didn't like the new game enough to buy it, but I pray to whatever god that will listen that a sequel be made.

Careful Scissorman, you just never know which god would just happen to be listening... or what they'll want in exchange. ;)

Man that's terrible news. :banghead I hope the best for Dan. I will have to give some serious thought as to what I want to say for the thank you card. don't know what the game would have been like without him.

From the Journal of Dr. Henry West, Tuesday November 30'th 2010 ~

I'm so pissed of right now, not even ONE fucking ad on the Xbox live tabs for the game, just COD stuff all the time and HALO, how to you expect to expose people to a game if no, one knows about anything other than F.P.FUCKIN S.
I'm sorry, I just cant believe Dan got shafted and this game is great. It really pisses me off you know? We have been following this thing all the way through, Nobody including us even knows to the full extent of what needed to be done to get this thing made i'm sure... and the majority of people out there don't know about the Bottlerocket fuck up or anything just... OMG gore this and OMG no depth or story that, they can just stick it. He did not deserve what happend to him no one on the team did. I'm going to tear some shit apart in Splatterhouse to cool off.

-End Rant!

Word.

I was equally pissed there was little to no love for Splatterhouse's release on either PS Shopping Network or Xbox live. Xbox 360 did have a tab for the DLC on new releases, but maybe it was the only DLC new that week and left them no choice.

The situation is bad here in the UK. No advertisements or marketing, and I had to try three stores before I found somewhere that was selling it, and even then there was no posters or any kind of marketing for the game. Even my local Gamestation didn't have it, and that's one of the UK's big two videogame stores.

Namco's throwing no support behind it, that much is obvious. And to be honest, I was forewarned that this might happen shortly before the game hit. Sad to see that it actually has happened.

I know that there isn't much advertising but what happened to the Splatterhouse truck? That's not something that magically disappears or gets shoved in a garage after only one appearance.

I think a lot of the problem here is due to the monumental cock-ups from BottleRocket.

They spent a fortune trying to market the game as 'Edgy' and 'Cool' by appeasing to the skater crowds, hence the Globe Shoes, the Skateboard, and lets not forgets the early logos and screenshots for 'Rick Taylor, Pro Skater'.

It wasn't until Namco-Bandai took the project In-House, and brought the decent members of BR onboard that they actually tried to save everything, but at great financial, and reputational, cost to Namco-Bandai. They spent a lot of money on damage control, putting the game back over a year, and this is during a time where big developers are going under due to one or two failed games. It looks like they are not bothered any more. They have spent considerably more on the game than they planned to, and considering the less than positive early reactions to the trailers, is it any surprise that they don't want to spend even more money on the game?

The question is, if certain asses at BottleRocket didn't fuck around so much at the start, and the game had come out on time. Would NB be more favorable to the franchise?

Yes, BR left quite a bad impact on Splatterhouse. Had they just put Tovar's team on from the start, they wouldn't have had to work on fixing BR's fuck ups. Then maybe the prospect of a sequel wouldn't be so foggy.

Everything said here about BottleRocket has been true. Now the nuts and bolts guys at BR, the programmers and artists, they had the best interests of the game at heart. Those were guys who, according to what I was told, brought in their own copies of the original games to have on their desks to inspire them while they worked. Those are the guys that were ultimately rehired by Namco.

The way I understand it, the higher-ups were the ones throwing monkey wrenches into the works - spending Namco's money like drunken sailors hiring their own personal heroes like Simon Bisley (who ultimately didn't do much), making absurd decrees like "All Mastodon, all the time" and insisting on all this junk that would have been great for Mark of Kri III or some other game, rather than Splatterhouse. I mean, look at the list: shiny clean monsters that came right out of Halo, a giant wicker man boss (the wicker man that ultimately made it into the game was much more appropriate), generic airplane hangars, Nazi zombies (talk about random), places loaded with big metal doors, green crystals, and arcing electricity generators that looked like they could be the 'mad scientist' level from a Crash Bandicoot game and lots more I can't recall at the moment. Their thoughts were "hey, it's cool looking - put it in the game!" Even if they were told "But it doesn't feel like Splatterhouse," their reaction was "so what, like anyone cares? Put it in."

And that's all I can actually talk about in public. I know a lot more about the troubled cycle the game had with BR, but out of respect for my sources I'm not saying anything.

Ultimately, if BottleRocket had kept on the game it would have been released in 2009 looking for all the world Generic Horror-esque Game #8776809, or Mark of Kri III starring Rick Taylor. At least once Namco took it back and brought the nuts and bolts BR guys on board, they started to make it more like Splatterhouse. It was brought back to more of the sewer-cemetery filth - to paraphrase something corpse said once - the rotting, dripping decay that it needed.

And that's why it'll be a damned shame if a sequel is never made. A full-on sequel without BR higher-up interference would be awesome.

*sigh

This is a bit of a downer.

It's weird... throughout the making of the game, Kotaku seemed pretty keen to be talking about it, Destructoid somewhat (just from what I saw during the months leading upto it).

Oh, and Vlygar, likely that was just a 'wrapped' truck (I work doing creative in the advertising biz as one of my main day gigs - so I see these types of media pretty often). Which basically means it has kind of like a static vinyl 'wrapped' onto the truck. Usually they just peel all that off and get it ready for the next client.

Sad, but true...

It would've been awesome to snag some of that vinyl afterwards and put it on your own vehicle, though!!!

Hmmmm... *scratches his chin thoughtfully... I wonder... (Might have to make some calls)

But... they've all been let go? :(


:banghead