Sniper Elite Dev to Fulfill Promised Kickstarter Rewards for Bankrupt Red Riding Hood Game

Red Riding Hood-inspired PC adventure game Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries has found a new home. Sniper Elite developer Rebellion announced Wednesday that it has acquired all assets and IP rights to the franchise from Belgium-based GRIN. That studio went bankrupt in August, at which time it also said that it would be unable to fulfill the rewards promised to people who originally backed the game on Kickstarter.

Thankfully for supporters, Rebellion also announced today that it will honor those pledges by delivering "all outstanding physical rewards to backers as soon as possible."

"We're really keen to do the right thing by the Woolfe backers," Rebellion CEO and creative director Jason Kingsley said in a statement. "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."

GRIN, not to be confused with the previously shuttered Bionic Commando developer GRIN that was also working on a Final Fantasy game, delivered the first episode of The Red Hood Diaries before going bankrupt. However, Rebellion said it has not yet decided if it will release subsequent episodes or do anything more with the franchise in the immediate future.

The Red Hood Diaries was developed using Unreal Engine 3, while Rebellion's games run on a proprietary engine known as Asura. "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," the developer explained.

Rebellion did not disclose a purchase price for The Red Hood Diaries. The developer, which also owns and operates comic book brands, said it decided to buy the franchise because it thought it could complement its existing lineup nicely.

"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," the developer said.

The Red Hood Diaries remains available to buy on Steam, but Rebellion is now listed as the owner. In addition, Rebellion has taken over the game's Kickstarter page and will write its own updates going forward.

For lots more on Rebellion's takeover of The Red Hood Diaries and what it means, read this detailed FAQ.