"This will give us time to polish and incorporate all the content to deliver a top notch game worthy of this classic video game franchise," Namco later explained to Joystiq.

The action game was originally being developed by external studio BottleRocket, with Namco pulling the team off the project earlier this year over an alleged "performance issue." BottleRocket then fired back, claiming it had not missed any "contractually defined milestones" and suggesting "Namco's management of the title was inept."

Splatterhouse is now being developed by Namco's internal Afro Samurai team, with the company having contracted some BottleRocket employees to help finish the game.