Sleeping Dogs was a game released over a decade ago, and even after all these years, I still cannot get this underrated gem out of my brain. The game had everything going for it: great gameplay, perfect aesthetics, and amazing writing from the get-go. It scratched an itch Grand Theft Auto couldn’t.
Being able to compare this game to one of the greatest franchises of all time is a huge statement that should speak volumes about how great Sleeping Dogs was. But amidst all this praise, Square Enix ended up going nowhere with the game and eventually shut down the company that developed Sleeping Dogs in the first place.
While Square Enix may have forgotten, I’m here to remind everyone that this game still exists, and I’m not the only one begging for a sequel.
The Failed Pitch
I remember reading an article that came out just three years after the success of Sleeping Dogs 1, and it broke my heart completely, having talked about the rotting corpse of what Sleeping Dogs 2 was supposed to be. The game was ambitious, offering all the gimmicks that 2010 games loved doing. There was the promise of co-op, branching storylines, and procedurally generated quests that could have led to an open world that felt limitless. But, after reading further, this ambition may have been what killed any hopes for a sequel.
It didn’t help that the development team over at United Front Games was burned out from the production hell of the original Sleeping Dogs, with most of the team quitting as soon as the game was finished, and even more fleeing when talks of a sequel were coming up.
What we got instead was…the disappointment that is Triad Wars. This game would release on PC to little to no fanfare because it technically wasn’t a new game. It used all the mechanics and assets of the previous game and shoehorned some multiplayer mechanics into it.
I will never understand why dev companies always want to implement multiplayer into video games that were thriving without it in the first place. Recycled assets, horrible marketing, and lukewarm reception all led to the company being axed, but I think there’s still something magical there.
The Base Mechanics
I think the real reason United Front Games failed was that it ignored everything that made the game great. Personally, I loved the visceral fighting style that this game had. Of course, the Batman Arkham games set the blueprint for many of the action games today, but Sleeping Dogs’ emphasis on finishers and environmental interactions made the game so much more interesting. I was living the fantasy of being in a John Woo movie by playing as this hard-boiled martial arts cop in the city of Hong Kong, and I was loving every second of it. Give me Stranglehold-style shooting mechanics and my soul is yours!
Not only was the martial arts amazing, but everything you did in between was just as fun. Driving in this game felt more like an arcade experience than something realistic and fluid like Grand Theft Auto. It made the game satisfying and opened up vehicular combat and dynamic chase scenes as well. If a sequel were to ever be made, I would love nothing more than to double down on these driving and combat mechanics, because this is where the game really shines. Give me current-gen martial arts and combat effects, and I promise you Square Enix would earn twice as much as Sleeping Dogs 1 did.
The Story
Sleeping Dogs 1 had a great aesthetic, taking place in Hong Kong and letting us step into the culture that surrounded the area. The game made you experience the thrill of being an undercover cop taking on the triads, although I think we could’ve doubled down. Spoiler Alert, but I know I’m not alone in wanting to make a different choice at the end of the game, and I think that’s something they should let the players do. Giving them the choice to see what kind of cop they would be and having those options actually matter throughout the story would have been amazing.
Sleeping Dogs 1 already had a morality system in place, where you could choose to play good cop or bad cop during a lot of the missions. Leaning into this branching story path and adding in more RPG mechanics would elevate the game to the next level. I can already imagine the feeling of having to toe the line between cop and criminal for the sake of unlocking subplots, making choices that would endanger my double life.
In fact, Sleeping Dogs doesn’t even have to be in Hong Kong anymore. At this point, I’m begging Square Enix to just do something with this amazing franchise instead of letting it fade away. It’s time to remake something else, darn it!
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