Sleeping Dogs launched ten years ago today, and the open-world action game was a hit with players and critics alike. So how could we go a decade without sequels?
United Front’s Sleeping Dogs launched in August 2012 as the spiritual successor to the True Crime series. The game was actually born as a new True Crime title before being canceled by Activision, picked up and rebranded by Square Enix. Despite selling millions in just a few months, a 2013 Square Enix report listed Sleeping Dogs as a failure, along with the Tomb Raider reboot and Hitman: Absolution, giving it three titles. The games “failed to reach their respective goals and yield financially unsatisfactory results.” The game was upgraded for the then-new Xbox One in 2014, and Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition was already an excellent game. Criminally, that’s the end of Wei Shen’s story.
Will Sleeping Dogs 2 happen?
But it shouldn’t have been. United Front immediately began pre-production work on the sequel, but he canceled Sleeping Dogs 2 in 2013 before it went into full production.Patrick Klepek did a deep dive into the sequel we couldn’t get over Vise Dating back to 2016, it includes insights and design documentation from the original team. Worth a read, co-op, Skyrim’s procedurally generated side him missions, a second player as the police (Watch Dogs later did something similar), and more. Shortly after, the team’s interest turned to a free-to-play Sleeping Dogs spin-off called Triad Wars, but that too was discontinued before it even left beta. United Front effectively ran odd jobs (including helping develop Halo: The Master Chief Collection) for the next few years before shutting down completely in 2016.
After all, it’s not entirely clear where the rights to the Sleeping Dogs IP currently lie, so this question is actually quite difficult to answer. The developer closure shouldn’t pose a problem, as Square Enix is believed to hold the rights, but recent developments have muddied the water even more. sold much of its studio and IP to Embracer for just $300 million. Such as Tomb Raider and Deus Ex (and Legacy of Kain is still my heartthrob). The Embracer was specifically asked about Sleeping Dogs, not confirmed Was it in a Square IP included in a bulk deal? If the IP remains on Square, it’s safe to say that it’s as good as dead. We have to imagine a bigger IP topping Embracer’s priority list right now, and the deal is still young.
But another question arises… who would develop a potential follow-up long after United Front closed? Few open-world games have good melee combat. One of the main reasons Sleeping Dogs stood out the way it did at launch. Insomniac would have been a good fit, but the California team Became PlayStation Studio It’s back in 2019, so it could be off the table. It’s not impossible for an outside developer to come forward and make the project successful, so it can’t be ruled out, but this is arguably the most difficult part of bringing Sleeping Dogs back to being faithful. I will prove that there is teeth Kind of a market gap for that, though. Similar Yakuza series have pivoted from their action-combat roots to turn-based RPG battles, retaining action-based melee combat only in their spin-off series Judgment, but with genres like GTA and Saints Row making some of the biggest Games tend to be focused. Giving the likes of Sleeping Dogs his USP, he stands apart from the major players on the field.
Even attempts to break into other forms of media only make Sleeping Dogs feel cursed. A film adaptation was announced in 2017, starring Donnie Yen, but it seems to have struggled to get off the ground.Yen was still talking about the project just recently last year — he apparently has the tie-up rights himself, and may just need the studio to buy the adaptation and throw in some cash, but it’s a 2012 one-off video game. The movie it is based on would sell poorly today. , even if I absolutely see hell out of this.a sequel to the game do One day, that might give the tie-in film the boost it needs, but we’ll have to wait on both counts. Just think how good the new Sleeping Dogs will look on current hardware. And it makes me sad that it might not happen.
Anyway, happy 10th anniversary to Sleeping Dogs, one of the best games of its kind. Get a pork bun or two to celebrate. Want a sequel? What kind of developer do you think would be up to the task? Would you like to one day see Donnie Yen kick the triad’s butt as Wei Shen? Sound off below!
