Less than two weeks from its planned launch, WaterMelon delays PAPRIUM until early next year

We’ve got some disappointing news for retro gaming enthusiasts this morning. PAPRIUM, the long-awaited beat-’em-up for the SEGA Genesis that was supposed to release on September 16, 2017 has been delayed until early 2018, developer WaterMelon announced this morning in an email to backers of the project. The delay comes as the result of a dispute with WaterMelon’s Payment processor, Paypal, which effectively locked the team out of their funds to develop the game.

“Silence is gold but not always,” Team Watermelon begins, in reference to fans’ very vocal response to an extended period of silence from the developer in the weeks leading up to PAPRIUM’s scheduled launch. “We were not very talkative those last months…we were at war! Struggling and battling with our payment processor, Paypal… as they locked our funds after over 8 years of business! An independent video game company is apparently not supposed to be that awesome!”

“Thanks to your trust and love for quality retro games, we received an unprecedented large amount of orders. Paypal decided it was way too suspicious for a Mega Drive / SEGA Genesis game to be that successful. Yes, you heard it right ! We are not drug dealers ! We are all 16-bit addicted, but nothing to cure about it! Even if they locked our funds, we continued part of the production on our own savings and it greatly affected our schedule and operations… in order to produce the biggest 16-bits games ever produced, we require a lot more than pocket money!”

WaterMelon hopes to receive the suspended funds in about a month, then proceed with production of the North American, Japanese, and European versions of PAPRIUM, as well as the $150 GrandStick III arcade stick, a limited edition 8-button stick made from premium Sanwa parts that will be signed, numbered, and optimized for the game.

Originally code-named “Project Y”, PAPRIUM tips the scales with the largest cart to grace the SEGA Genesis. The game clocks in at an obscene 80-MEGs, and features 24 levels and five playable characters to control as you clean the city streets of baddies in brutal, bare knuckle brawls.

In case you missed it, you can check out the announcement trailer below:

News of PAPRIUM’s delay is certainly disappointing, but those who’ve dealt with WaterMelon in the past may not be especially surprised. The studio’s first success, the SEGA Genesis role-playing game Pier Solar And The Great Architects, received a notoriously lengthy delay before finally making its way to project backers in 2010.

So, are you one of the backers affected by PAPRIUM’s delay? If so, how are you taking the news? Do you think WaterMelon’s response to this delay was the right one given the game’s planned release was less than two weeks away? Be sure to sound off in the comments section below and let us know.