Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries, a platformer based on a dark retelling of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale, drew in $72,000 on Kickstarter, well over its $50,000 goal. But it ultimately came to grief: The first episode was released in March to less-than-enthusiastic reviews, and a few months later, developer GriN Multimedia pulled the plug, saying that it could neither finish the game nor deliver the Kickstarter rewards. It was an ugly ending by any measure.
Today, however, the news got a whole lot better, as UK-based developer Rebellion announced that it has acquired Woolfe from GriN. Even better, it will attempt to fulfill all outstanding Kickstarter rewards, despite not receiving any of the funds raised by the campaign.
"We're really keen to do the right thing by the Woolfe backers," Rebellion CEO and Creative Director Jason Kingsley said. "Just because we've joined the Woolfe project much further down the road doesn't mean we shouldn't respect the people who made it happen in the first place. If a backer hasn't received the reward they pledged for, we're going to do our best to get it to them, even if we have to make it ourselves."
Somewhat surprisingly, the commitment to completing backer rewards does not extend to the game itself. Rebellion said it hasn't decided how it will make use of the property, or even if it will finish the promised second chapter, although it confirmed in an FAQ on Kickstarter that Woolfe will remain on Steam at its current price. It also provided a list of rewards it will deliver, and said that it hopes to have them all in the hands of backers by the end of the year.
Thanks, Polygon.
