Developer Bottlerocket was under contract working on the Namco Bandai title, Splatterhouse, but it would seem that they were not happy. The development of Splatterhouse for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 has been pulled back in-house.

According to various reports, representatives from Namco Bandai showed up with a U-Haul truck and took all of their assets, equipment, and IP out of the Bottlerocket facility with little more than an announcement to Bottlerocket management that the title was being pulled.

Our sources say that Namco Bandai’s in-house team that worked on the recently released Afro Samurai will take over on the title and continue finishing it for release later this year. Some in the shadows of all of this drama have said that members of the Afro Samurai team were sent on-site to help Bottlerocket work on the project and the Bottlerocket staff found them less than helpful.

To add to this mystery, some employees had been identified by Namco recruiters and have reported that they have been contacted about the possibility of continuing to work on the project at a new facility that was being setup in Carlsbad, California by Namco.

Some are saying that this was the only project that Bottlerocket had at the moment, and this move by Namco has destroyed this developer. Employees were given their last paychecks, and rumors continue that Bottlerocket only has enough cash on hand to survive a couple of months, at best. If the company cannot pickup a new project, it looks like Bottlerocket is finished.