Splatterhouse hits the market for Halloween

When Namco Bandai last talked about Splatterhouse, it was to delay the action horror game into the third quarter of this year. The game is apparently going to miss that window, but not by much. A Namco Bandai representative has told GameSpot that Splatterhouse is now due for a Halloween release, putting the haunted house game alongside an appropriate holiday.

An update of the original gross-out arcade beat-'em-up released in 1988, Splatterhouse features a mix of platforming, puzzle solving, and brutal combat, all set to an original storyline by comic-book scribe Gordon Rennie (Judge Dredd, Necronauts). Players assume the role of a college student in search of his kidnapped girlfriend and subsequently happen upon a mask that confers great power--and an insatiable bloodlust.

The game was originally announced as being in development at BottleRocket Entertainment in May 2008, but Namco Bandai abruptly pulled the studio off the project in February 2009. After a brief dispute between the two companies, Variety reported that Namco Bandai had picked up a number of ex-BottleRocketeers to finish the project.