Splatterhouse follows college student Rick Taylor as he tries to rescue his girlfriend, Jennifer, who has disappeared after entering the mysterious and run-down West Mansion. Confronted by horrific other-worldly creatures, Rick comes across a mystical sentient mask that promises to give him the power to find Jennifer. Full of desperation and rage, Rick puts on the “Terror Mask” and is transformed into a juggernaut of pure violence and destruction. Featuring an original storyline by critically-acclaimed comic book writer Gordon Rennie (Necronauts, Judge Dredd), Splatterhouse takes Rick beyond the mansion as he scours the ends of the world to rescue his beloved Jennifer.
Several factors played a major role in the selection process for the technology that will bring to market the unique mix of the brawler and survival horror genres found in Splatterhouse. Most important, Gamebryo’s flexible and modular features with easy-to-extend, fully-documented APIs allows BottleRocket to focus on game creativity. The company is also impressed with the ability to quickly develop prototypes and get to first-playables simultaneously across multiple platforms as they did with Splatterhouse. This is done with Gamebryo’s Floodgate™ stream processing engine that makes it possible to simultaneously develop for multi-core systems – across multiple architectures – ensuring all SKUs can be released simultaneously.
This is one of several next generation games being developed by BottleRocket using Gamebryo. The company recognizes that Emergent’s Gamebryo is the best fit for development on a wide range of genres and platforms.
“Gamebryo provides an extremely flexible architecture that can be used to develop games in a wide variety of genres,” said Rich Karpp, Director of Technology at BottleRocket Entertainment. “Thanks to Emergent’s responsive support and up to date technology, Gamebryo allowed us to get up to speed on multiple platforms quickly so we can concentrate on creating the best game possible.”
The Emergent team was very excited to be working with a company known for quality titles taking on the recreation of a pivotal title from gaming history.
“BottleRocket is uniquely qualified to take on the challenge of taking this genre defining classic to the next-gen level,” said Scott Johnson, president, Emergent. “BottleRocket is among the next wave of AAA developers and choosing Emergent’s Gamebryo supports their creative goals and allows them to focus on in-depth storylines, innovative design and immersive gameplay.”
Embodying the unfiltered, primal aggression of its namesake, Splatterhouse gives players countless ways to decimate the mansion’s assortment of demons, monstrosities and abominations. Featuring a dynamic combat system, Rick will be able to use his brute strength to perform bone-crushing melee combos, savage grapples and wield an assortment of makeshift weapons including the series’ trademark 2x4 and even limbs and heads ripped from enemies themselves. Players will also be able to reanimate the corpses of fallen enemies to fight alongside Rick, imparting strategic depth to the game’s battle and unique puzzle systems. More agile than ever before, Rick can now leap great distances and propel himself to out of reach areas by swinging from outcroppings in the environment, adding an all-new level of exploration to the series.
Introducing a new regeneration mechanic, players will be able to determine Rick’s status in battle by visible cues detailing how injured he is, doing away with the traditional health bar. If he succumbs to the mansion’s deadly inhabitants, they will begin to dismember him, savagely tearing away limbs and ripping at his flesh to expose his internal organs. To survive, Rick must call upon the power of the Terror Mask to regenerate his mutilated body, allowing players to watch in gory detail as bones, veins, muscles and skin return to his body in real-time.
Namco Bandai's Splatterhouse, developed by BottleRocket Entertainment, will launch for the Xbox 360 and PS3 system in 2009.