Creation
BottleRocket Entertainment was a video game development studio founded by former Sony San Diego employee Jay Beard. After the development and release of The Mark of Kri, Beard and many of the people who worked on
The Mark of Kri formed the studio to work independently on projects that they felt were visually and emotionally strong. Due to their relationship with The Mark of Kri, Sony commissioned BottleRocket Entertainment to work on the sequel, The Rise of the Kasai, a few years later.
The studio was closed down with an official annoucement coming on September 3, 2009. The studio was in business for seven years.
Rise of the Kasai
Having previously worked on The Mark of Kri at Sony San Diego, Sony felt it was a wise decision to pick BottleRocket to handle development duties for the sequel,
The Rise of the Kasai. The game retained the same art style as the previous game, mixing the animation style of Walt Disney and Don Bluth with the bloody, brutal world of Conan the Barbarian. Kasai took a much darker undertone than its predecessor. Kasai was released to generally favorable reviews, but it was considered inferior to The Mark of Kri.
Xiaolin Showdown
Konami hired BottleRocket Entertainment to develop a game based on the Kids WB cartoon series
Xiaolin Showdown. The game had the same play style as Super Smash Bros., and received generally poor reviews worldwide.
Flash
Brash Entertainment signed with BottleRocket to develop a licensed property game based on the DC Comics character The Flash. However, due to Brash's failed attempts of garnering sales after weak licensed properties with the films
Jumper and
Space Chimps, Brash announced it was closing its doors in November of 2008 and thus cancelled the project. Three digitally painted images appeared on Roger Robinson's blogspot showing the proposed load menus for the game.
Watchmen
BottleRocket was originally asked to work on what would eventually become
Watchmen: The End is Nigh. However, they decided to walk away from the project. Roger Robinson, longtime collaborator with BottleRocket Entertainment, had done only a couple pieces of concept art before the project was passed over.
Splatterhouse
Namco Bandai was interested in resurrecting their old arcade game
Splatterhouse for the Xbox 360 and PS3. After signing BottleRocket Entertainment onto the project, development chugged along until February of 2009. Namco Bandai announced that they were pulling development kits and assets for Splatterhouse from BottleRocket Entertainment and handing the game over to their own in-house Namco Bandai Games to finish development duties. No exact reasoning was given for this.
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