Vanquish almost had a robotic canine companion

Vanquish wasn't always the story of one man fighting alone (in an amazing suit of robotic armor). Platinum Games considered pairing him with a feminine android who could combine with Sam's suit and be used as a weapon, and even a robot dog.

In a post on the Sega blog, character modeler Yoshifumi Hattori discusses the process of creating character models, including some like the dog that didn't end up being used. The robodog would also have been able to connect to Sam's armor, and the concept art above shows that it would have been able to provide a shield and fire missiles. But that idea was vanquished.