
Namco Bandai delivered that game in 2010 with Splatterhouse, released for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The series sat dormant after Splatterhouse 3, and fans clamored for a new game for years. Namco also published Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti ("Naughty Graffiti"), a bizarre and wacky prequel for the Famicom that features Super-Deformed versions of the game's characters and parodies of numerous horror films (and their associated tropes). Splatterhouse 3 plays more like a Streets of Rage-style beat-'em-up and includes a non-linear exploration element where players navigate a maze of rooms to reach a boss battle. The first two Splatterhouse games feature 2D side-scrolling Kung Fu Master-style gameplay Rick can splatter most enemies in one hit, but can only survive a few hits himself. (That the first three Splatterhouse games featured no real human foes to beat up probably helped, too.) The game's later release on the TurboGrafx-16 received some Bowdlerization to avoid the same fate later games did not get such treatment, as the relative obscurity of Splatterhouse spared the port and its sequels from the crosshairs of the early 1990s "violence in video games" moral panic spawned by Mortal Kombat and Night Trap.

Namco released the first Splatterhouse in arcades in the United States, its graphic violence sparked a media frenzy from Moral Guardians, which got the game pulled from arcades. Rick has a constant companion throughout this freak show of demented demons: the Terror Mask, an Ancient Artifact that confers great and terrible powers upon anyone who wears it - and seems to have a mind of its own. Players control the protagonist Rick Taylor as he fights against diabolical supernatural forces in a struggle to save the woman he loves (and, in Splatterhouse 3, his son). Splatterhouse is a series of Beat 'em Up games created by Bandai Namco Entertainment.
