BottleRocket Announces Closure

BottleRocket Entertainment must close its doors for good. The Mark of Kri developer, which had been working on Splatterhouse for Namco Bandai until the publisher took the title back, made the announcement in an email to media outlets. "After fighting to keep the doors open for the past six months we have decided to close and move on," wrote studio president Jay Beard, as printed by consumer weblog Kotaku. BottleRocket first encountered difficulties when Namco Bandai claimed the studio had a "performance issue" that made it necessary for the publisher to take Splatterhouse back in-house. BottleRocket contended that it had never missed any milestones and that Namco Bandai's management was "inept." Following the Splatterhouse project transition, BottleRocket said it had another project in development and would strive to continue on, but the studio never announced a new publishing deal. In his statement, president Beard says he is "in the process of building a new development studio from the ground up," but did not elaborate. Gamasutra has reached out to BottleRocket for further details and will update with any we receive.