Happily Ever After: Rebellion Buy Woolfe
All the better to acquire you with, my dear
Whoo yeah, October 22nd! This means... Wombat Day? Yeah, it's Wombat Day! And, you, ah, you know what's like a wombat? It's a wolf. Right? Kinda. I mean. They're both mammals. Greyish. Got legs. Basically the same. This works. Happy Wombat Day!
Sniper Elite developers Rebellion have made a furry friend of their own, announcing that they've bought up Woolfe – The Red Hood Diaries [official site]. Its developers Grin (different to the Bionic Commando Grin) folded in August after the genericly 'twisted' platformer reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood sold poorly, but apparently Rebellion see something in it. They'll fulfil overdue Kickstarter rewards too.
It's a curious pickup. Woolfe is a fairly typical 'grim' and 'bloody' reimagining, with Little Red running and jumping around a steampunk world swinging an axe. You know, like American McGee's Alice, or the t-shirts you'll see on teenagers hanging round the benches outside WHSmith. Everyone's free to have their own gritty take on ancient fairy tales too, and Woolfe's reception was lukewarm enough that it doesn't have the best name recognition, so I don't really get it. I assume it was cheap.
Rebellion explain that they'll be sending out Woolfe's unfulfilled Kickstarter backer rewards - posters, art books, boxed games, and so on. They also say:
"Aside from developing our own IP, Rebellion occasionally acquires unique and exciting projects from other developers, and we like to think we have one of the most diverse games portfolios out there.
"Interestingly, our book imprints have published quite a few dark and twisted retellings of classic tales, and so Woolfe's gorgeous, twisted take on Red Riding Hood immediately caught our interest when we heard it was up for sale."
Presumably they have a plan. They do mention that the purchase included assets for a Woolfe sequel, but they're not sure what they'll do with them:
"At this stage, we’ve not had time to dig into all the game’s assets and code to properly assess what we have. Taking a game originally designed for Unreal Engine 3 and making it work in Rebellion’s own Asura engine is a huge task, and one we can’t take lightly!"
Curiouser and curiouser!