Tattoo Assassins

Tattoo Assassins
Tattoo Assassins arcade flyer
Developer(s)Data East Pinball
Publisher(s)Data East
Director(s)Bob Gale
Producer(s)Mike Marvin
Designer(s)Joe Kaminkow
Eddi Wilde (stunt coordinator)
John Carpenter (programmer)
Artist(s)Paul Faris
Bob Short (make-up artist)
Writer(s)Bob Gale
Composer(s)Brian L. Schmidt
Platform(s)Arcade
ReleaseCancelled
Genre(s)Fighting
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer
Arcade systemData East DECO32

Tattoo Assassins is an unreleased fighting game developed by Data East Pinball (currently known as Stern Pinball), the pinball division of Data East for release in arcades. A few prototypes were test-marketed in 1994, but the game was never officially released. Spearheaded by Bob Gale and Joe Kaminkow, Tattoo Assassins was designed to be Data East's answer to Mortal Kombat.

The game's development had a nine-month deadline, nearly coinciding with Sega's purchase of Data East's pinball division, which would not be met. It was nearly completed before being cancelled, though it still had gameplay and sound glitches.

In 2025, exA-Arcadia announced plans to revive Tattoo Assassins with bug fixes & up to 4k resolution for its namesake platform under a deal with Data East's current rights holder G-Mode.