Development
Heavenly Sword began development in 2002 with footage of the original PC version published on TeamXbox.com in 2004. It had, at one time, been up and running on an early Xbox 360 prototype, but this was abandoned in favor of the PlayStation 3 when the title was picked up by SCEE . The game was developed using Havok Complete, a combination of Havok Physics and Havok Animation.
Actor Andy Serkis, who is best known for his motion capture and voice work for the character Gollum in the The Lord of the Rings movies, performs as the voice and motion capture actor for King Bohan, one of the major characters in Heavenly Sword; he also acts as Dramatic Director for the game and is one of the writers of the story of the game. Serkis is not the only familiar name attached to the game as main character Nariko is voiced by Australian actress Anna Torv, who plays Agent Olivia Dunham in the television series Fringe. Nariko's facial features are also based on Torv's, who participated in motion capture for the game in March 2007.
A demo was released to the PlayStation Store on July 26, 2007 featuring a short, cinematic clip at the beginning and two brief enemy battles, lasting approximately five to ten minutes. An eight-second clip of the game was seen in an episode of the TV series Heroes entitled "Parasite", ostensibly being played by Jessica Sanders and her son, Micah. It featured Nariko running across ropes as they were cut by Bohan's soldiers, before landing on the platform to face them. While the episode was broadcast over four months before the actual release of the game, the level displayed remained in the released build, including the rope sequence shown; the icons in the final game used to inform the player which buttons to press were changed from large, central icons as seen in the clip, to be smaller and positioned at the bottom of the screen. Sony and Ninja Theory have made five 'making of' videos about the production of Heavenly Sword, with each one detailing a certain aspect of the games production, from music to motion capture. The videos can either be unlocked while playing the game or downloaded from the PlayStation Store.
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