The PlayStation 3 Assassin Game That Was Cancelled In Favour Of Heavenly Sword

Sony Computer Entertainment Cambridge have yet another cancelled game in the closet that looks interesting in concept—a Kill Bill-style assassin game starring a female lead who would focus on disguises. The game was tentatively titled Zodiac Assassin, and would be set in locales such as Mexico, Turkey and Japan.

Various costume design concepts for the game’s lead character.

A painting of a crowd scene in Mexico during the “Day of the Dead” festival.

A drawing of a crowd scene that would have served as part of graphical demo.

An illustration of a fish market scene set in Tokyo.

Villains concepts. Each country/locale would have had its own signature boss.

A combination of painting + geometry used as art direction for a lighting test.

Zodiac Assassin was being conceptualized for the PlayStation 3 in 2005. The game was cancelled as Sony decided to invest instead in Ninja Theory’s Heavenly Sword.

SCE Cambridge worked on other concepts that didn’t make it to production, too: an alien monkey game (no, seriously) that led to the conception of Eyepet and a survival horror game titled Manhattan.