News

Versus Evil Pulls Afro Samurai 2 Game, Refunds Players

Steve Escalante, the general manager of video game development company Versus Evil, told the CGMagazine website at the Montreal International Gaming Summit this week that it has pulled its Afro Samurai 2: The Revenge of Kuma game from retailers, and that the company is refunding all purchasers.

Escalante told CGMagazine, "The game was a failure. We could not do, in good conscience, volume 2 and volume 3. So we've begun the process, it's been a long process to figure it out because Sony has never really had to do this in this way, but we're returning all the money. So across the board we're putting out an apology saying 'sorry about this.'"

Escalante added that Versus Evil decided to pull the game after looking at the situation from a company perspective.

CGMagazine had reported on November 9 that the game was removed from the PlayStation Store, and has since been removed from Steam and the Xbox Store.

Versus Evil released the game's "volume 1" on September 22 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, to generally unfavorable reviews. The company planned to release the game in three parts, and players could pre-order the full trilogy at a discount.

Versus Evil describes the original story, written by James Defelice (American Sniper):

Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma continues the action-packed saga of Afro Samurai, but this time follows the narrative of one of Afro's closest friends Jinno, who blames him for the death of their friends and family. Fueled by an insatiable sadness Jinno endures a series of painful body modifications that transform him into a cybernetically enhanced killing machine called Kuma. Now, emotionally broken, his mind twisted from the pain of his memories and the sadistic modifications to his body, Kuma awakens with one goal in mind; bloody revenge for the pain his old friend and 'brother' Afro Samurai caused following the great battle at the Red Gate of Mt. Shumi.

Namco Bandai Games released the first Afro Samurai game in North America and Europe in 2009 for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

Animation studio Gonzo adapted Takashi Okazaki's 1999 Afro Samurai seinen manga into the Afro Samurai television mini-series (2007) and later into the Afro Samurai: Resurrection television movie (2009). Both anime projects became the bestselling anime DVD releases of their respective years.

Seven Seas Entertainment released the manga in North America, and Funimation released the anime adaptations.

[Via VG24/7]