In the early 80s up to the 90s there was a particular franchise that came out on the arcade floor, and then the Sega Genesis which stuck with me even to this day. It was a homage/tribute to all of the horror icons of that era, and was an original unique title. The creature designs, the atmospheric but catchy haunting soundtrack to the grotesque and nightmare fuel ridden visuals left an immense impact on gamers all around the world to this day. It had received its first attempt to bring the franchise back to the new generation with a remake that sorely left a hollow mark on the industry which was a cult classic but still had plenty of potential roads ahead of it. That franchise was Splatterhouse. 

A narrative driven, third person survival horror/body horror action game where your character Rick Taylor a parapsychologist student travelled to the iconic "Splatterhouse" or the West Mansion with his beautiful girlfriend Jennifer. In the storm Jennifer screams, and Rick is seemingly murdered by an unknown force but reawakens because of a sentinent bloodlust filled ancient Deity Mask known as the Terror Mask that provides him with immense superhuman strength, abilities and craving for blood so that he may seek out his girlfriend and get out of the nightmare. 

The series had some amazing narratives ahead of it, with Rick having to kill his girlfriends living mutated form at the end of the West Mansion, to Reaching into the depths of the Hellish Dimension to save her soul and return her to the world of the living. In the Third title, he finally settled down with her, became a successful wall street employee and had a son but the "Ancient One" from the dimension Rick saved Jennifer and accidentally unleashed came to his home and attempted to kill her and use his son to bring about the Apocalypse. Only at the end The Terror Mask revealed he had been using Rick to gain energy and strength from the fights and become it's own God and control the earth which left Rick having to destroy the evil mask once and for all for a happy, normal existence after the nightmare ended. 

In the Poorly recieved 2010 remake of the franchise, Jim Cummings who portrayed voices such as Winnie The Pooh, and many others lend his foul language voice to the iconic Villainous Mask controlling Rick as he went to save Jennifer from a lovecraftian nightmare with Dr. West from Re-Animator being the main villain, and a confusing narrative that threw everything into a strange direction with some iffy camera controls and poor issues that really hurt the iconic franchise. It overrelied on comedy, sexual titlation and horror tropes that really in my opinion distracted it from what could have been a strong and violent horror narrative about Love, loyality and the fear of losing control against something deep inside your very own soul.

I think that after the success of the God Of War game in 2018 It really struck to me how strong Cody Barlog, and his team at Sony Santa Monica Studios was genius with the way Kratos was reinvented for the modern age but also kept in line with who he was in the previous games. It felt like a great beginning for the franchise not only with intelligently written, mature and dark themes of fatherhood, the past catching up with you and how you need to embrace who you are to save the ones you love in life.

I feel like They could really develop a proper "Splatterhouse" reboot that captures the dark atmospheric, suspenseful, grotesque, chronenbergian, emotionally charged narrative for Rick's journey to save Jennifer from the nightmarish creatures and his personal struggle with containing himself from the "Terror Masks" influence to keep his humanity from being lost from the endless bloodlust. I think they would make the combat tight, well controlled, handled very smoothly with how Rick fights the creatures but could add in some balanced nightmare sequences that captures the horror scares from the second and third that could make players frightened, on their toes from tension, never knowing what's coming or how to handle a situation and give the game some quieter moments so it's not always just run and fight all the time. I feel like Cody and his team are exceptionally talented and brilliant when it comes to writing their characters to feel more relatable, mature, emotional and quite believable. I feel like he could flesh Rick Taylor and Jennifer to the point where you could be rooting for the hero and truly develop an emotional set of tears for her end. 

I also think that they could develop the Terror Mask to be more nightmare fuel and sarcastic with his aggressive tone, constantly pestering Rick about his thoughts, feelings, emotional fears/anxiety but keep him grounded so he has that hint of evil to come with his betrayal in the original third game but keep that from getting too obvious. Have it play along with Rick's quest and use it to his advantage to manipulate and torment him as the narrative keeps pushing forward well paced. 

I really hope this happens because Splatterhouse 3 was the first survival horror experience I ever played as a youngling and truly captivated me into the genre and quite honestly made me deeply scared. It would be nice to get a game that captures that element of horror, scares and frightened action that the originals are known for.