Let’s say you’re in the market for a PS4. So you, being the savvy consumer that you undoubtedly are, decide to look up the console’s best-rated titles on Metacritic to see if the platform has enough quality games to make it worth its $400 price tag. After scrolling through the list, you reach the bottom and are greeted with Basement Crawl, Bloober Team’s horror-themed Bomberman clone that released this February to scathing reviews (it sits at an abysmal 27, based on 16 reviews).

If you read Bloody Disgusting prior to the game’s release, you may recognize the title. I gave the game a fair amount of coverage leading up to its release because it looked like a genuinely eerie little game. Unfortunately, the only thing that’s scary about Basement Crawl is how awful it is, and this is something its developer is fully aware of.

Speaking with GameSpot, Bloober Team’s Marc Colhoun detailed their plan to try and make it up to those who spent money on what was largely an unfinished, buggy mess of a game. According to Colhoun, they’re not only deeply apologetic for the state of the game, they’re working on remedying the situation by rebuilding the game and making it available as a free download to those who bought the original.

“Usually, what you will see at this point is a lot of marketing talk and maybe a patch. Rather than accepting defeat on this and issuing a patch that kinda fixes this or kinda improves that, we have decided to just come out and explain to you where we are right now and what we plan to do. We have been rebuilding the game, completely from scratch and on a new engine.”

“I know that this isn’t really the way things are usually done in the industry, but I think that if you have put a bad product out to people it is your job to do what you can to fix that. Even if it means going back to the drawing board on a game that has already been released.”

“We don’t want to come out and say that this [new version] is going to be 10/10 GoTY, but just a way for us to regain the trust of gamers. We also really don’t want anyone to think that this is some kind of quick money grab. So, we will be giving this game for free to people who bought the original game. This is our priority, to ensure that we give you what you expected from us. To do this we are getting in touch with as many people as we can that bought the game to get feedback and help ensure that you guys are just as much part of the process as we are.”

“This deals with the technical issues we ran into but a few of you spoke about how there needs to be a tutorial, AI, more game types and so on. We have added all of these things into the game and more. We aren’t talking about it too much right now simply because we are in no position to be making promises to people.”

It’s clear that Bloober Team wants to fix this. That’s admirable, and it may even be enough to restore faith in the developer. No studio wants to be known for making a console’s worst reviewed game, and Basement Crawl has some definite potential, at least in terms of its atmosphere and creepy/quirky cast of characters. You can see a little of each in its debut teaser below.