Sleeping Dogs (video game)

• 1. Introduction

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  Sleeping Dogs, a 2012 action game set in contemporary Hong Kong, almost never reached a single player. On the 9th of February 2011, the publisher Activision announced that it was cancelling the project, which at that point carried the title True Crime: Hong Kong. The stated reason was "quality issues". Further investment, Activision said, would not make the game competitive, even under its most optimistic projections.

  The studio building the game told a different story. Executive producer Stephen Van Der Mescht said that "True Crime: Hong Kong was playable from start to finish and virtually complete in terms of content". He added that the game "stood apart" from its competition.

  A few months later, another company paid for the rights, and the same game went on sale under a new name. That raises three questions. How does an almost finished game survive being dropped by the people paying for it? What is it like to play a police officer who must commit crimes to keep his cover? And why did a game that critics liked still disappoint the company that sold it?

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• 2. From Black Lotus

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  Black Lotus began at the studio Treyarch in 2007 and was cancelled within the same year. It had a female hero and was meant to echo Hong Kong action movies. Activision decided that this direction would not sell, given the other games on the market at that time.

  Towards the end of 2007, Activision approached United Front Games, a brand new studio of just ten people. The task was to turn the Black Lotus idea into an open-world game with a male lead. Activision supplied enough funding for 180 employees.

  A year into production, Activision suggested attaching the game to its existing True Crime series. Earlier True Crime games had sold disappointingly. Activision still believed the new game's ideas could revive the franchise while also succeeding on their own. The game was revealed as True Crime: Hong Kong in November 2009, then pushed into 2010 for more polish.

  On the 22nd of June 2011, Activision chief executive Eric Hirshberg explained the cancellation in terms of money and time. Rising costs and repeated delays meant the game would have to be a "pretty incredible success" to earn an acceptable return. Hirshberg also pointed to competition from Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.

  United Front Games then cut 120 staff, and the studio's survival was in doubt until August. That month Square Enix acquired the publishing rights. It did not buy the True Crime property, and it retitled the game Sleeping Dogs. Lee Singleton, general manager of Square Enix London Studios, said he recognized the game's playability and potential. United Front president Stefan Wessels said he was excited to work with that studio. Sixty people were added to the development team.

  The finished game would not carry the True Crime license, though it is still regarded as that series' spiritual successor.

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• 3. Undercover

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  Wei Shen, voiced by Will Yun Lee, is a former San Francisco police officer who was transferred to the Hong Kong Police Department. His assignment is to infiltrate and destroy the Sun On Yee, a Triad organization based on the real Sun Yee On. The game's version of Hong Kong is split into four districts named after regions of the real city.

  The story opens in Aberdeen, where Shen appears to be a petty criminal. He joins an associate named Naz Singh on a drug deal with Four Finger Wu, a member of the 18K. A security guard interrupts, and Wu kills him in a panic. Wu and Singh are arrested.

  In jail, Shen meets his childhood friend Jackie Ma, who offers to introduce him to his gang once they are released. Jackie does not know that Shen is an undercover cop. The arrest was staged by Superintendent Thomas Pendrew, played by Tom Wilkinson, and Inspector Raymond Mak, played by Byron Mann. Their aim was to reach the Water Street Boys, a branch of the Sun On Yee.

  The plot runs on two tracks. Shen must finish his police mission while committing crimes to prove himself to the Triads. He also carries out jobs for a Triad lieutenant, including assassinations of members loyal to rival lieutenants.

  Inside the gang, enforcer Conroy Wu, played by Robin Shou, is hostile at first. Leader Winston Chu, played by Parry Shen, trusts Shen quickly and sends him and Jackie against the Jade Gang. That rival branch is led by Sam "Dogeyes" Lin, who has history with Shen. Dogeyes was the boyfriend of Shen's sister Mimi, an addict who died of an overdose after the family moved to America. Meanwhile, Inspector Jane Teng, played by Kelly Hu, tasks Shen with arresting a ketamine supplier called Popstar.

  Popstar's arrest squeezes the ketamine supply, and suspicion falls on Shen. He redirects it to Ming, a dealer working for Winston. Dogeyes' men shoot up Winston's mother's restaurant, and the Water Street Boys answer by burning down Dogeyes' waterfront sweatshop. Winston begins treating Shen as his second-in-command and introduces him to the elderly chairman, David Wa-Lin "Uncle" Po, played by James Hong.

  The turning point is Winston's wedding. Men posing as the 18K massacre the guests, killing Winston and his fiancée, Peggy Li. Uncle Po is critically wounded, but Shen saves him and is promoted to "Red Pole".

  Shen then hunts down the killer, Johnny Ratface, who names Dogeyes as the mastermind. Dogeyes is captured and killed by Winston's mother. When Uncle Po dies in hospital, a power struggle opens. Shen sides with "Broken Nose" Jiang against Henry "Big Smile" Lee, even after Pendrew orders him off the case.

  Lee begins attacking other branches and intimidating voters ahead of the leadership election. Shen finds Jackie disemboweled and hanging in an alleyway. He is abducted by Liu Shen Tong, a feared enforcer who knows Shen is a cop. Shen is tortured, escapes and kills Tong. At Lee's compound he learns that Pendrew has betrayed him.

  After Lee dies, Jiang is elected chairwoman. Shen then receives video from Jiang showing that Pendrew killed Uncle Po by injecting chemicals into his IV line. Shen leaks the footage, and Pendrew is incriminated. Shen returns to the police force, while Jiang orders what remains of the Sun On Yee to leave him alone because of his loyalty to her.

  The wider cast includes socialite Vivienne Lu, played by Lucy Liu. Shen's possible love interests include the American tourist Amanda Cartwright, played by Emma Stone, the electronics expert "Not Ping", played by Celina Jade, and the club hostess Tiffany Kim, played by Yunjin Kim.

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• 4. Three Kinds of Respect

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  Three separate experience tracks shape Wei Shen, and each pulls him toward a different life. The game calls them Triad, Face and Police.

  Triad experience comes from melee combat and violent acts such as "environmental kills". The reward scales with the complexity of the attack. It unlocks stronger melee skills, including more damage, tougher weapons and unblockable attacks.

  Face experience comes from civilian side missions, and it fills a meter on the mini-map beside Shen's health. A fuller meter unlocks cosmetic rewards such as clothes and vehicles. At higher Face levels, the player can buy them freely and even summon a chosen vehicle through a valet, at any time and place. A completely full meter grants health regeneration and extra attack damage.

  Police experience rewards the opposite behavior. It is earned by limiting civilian casualties and property damage in missions, and by finishing police side missions. It improves Shen's firearm skills, and it unlocks abilities such as disarming opponents, hot-wiring or slim-jimming cars, and pulling weapon stashes from the trunks of police cars. It can also lower police heat.

  What Shen wears matters too. Clothes, accessories and vehicles change how non-player characters react to him, and certain outfit combinations alter statistics such as experience gained, damage dealt and heat.

  That heat is a meter for crimes the player chooses to commit. When it reaches 5, the police pursue Shen aggressively. It recedes once he is out of the officers' sight, but they keep searching and resume the chase if they spot him again.

  Between story missions, the city is open for karaoke bars, carjacking, street racing and a fight club. Shen can date several potential girlfriends, which earns collectibles and bonus content. Collecting jade zodiac statuettes and returning them to a dojo unlocks martial arts combos.

  Many of these side activities pay out Stat Awards in bronze, silver and gold tiers, which feed achievements and trophies. The game has no multiplayer mode, only online leaderboards for comparing scores.

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• 5. Fists Before Guns

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  Design director Mike Skupa has said that the combat started life as "one big violent sandbox". It progressed to a playable demo, and Skupa was pleased with how much of the demo's character survived into the finished game. Feedback from Square Enix shaped the refinement, and the team drew references from Tony Jaa's film The Protector. The goals were multi-directional fighting, strike-based play and interaction with the environment.

  The result runs against the open-world habit of favoring guns. Sleeping Dogs puts melee first, and its fighting has been compared to Batman: Arkham Asylum. Opponents can attack from any direction. The player answers with three basic commands, which are attack, grapple and counter, and chains them together with movement.

  The face meter fills faster when the player defeats enemies with varied moves in quick succession. Environmental attacks also count. These are performed by dragging an enemy to a particular object, which Shen uses to finish the fight.

  Knives, tire irons and frying pans can serve as weapons, but they break with extended use. Guns are scarce, and the player normally carries just one. Handguns can be stored, but every other firearm must be thrown away once its ammunition runs out.

  Gunfights add a cover system with a gun fu twist. If the player vaults out of cover, or manually disarms a gun-wielding enemy, time briefly slows. Chaining successive headshots stretches that slow motion further.

  Driving has its own signature move. During a chase, an "action hijack" makes Shen leap from his vehicle to steal another one in motion.

  When Shen takes damage, cover can reduce the loss. If his health runs out, he respawns at a hospital or a clinic. He can also recover health by ordering food or drinks from stalls and vending machines, which add buffs such as regeneration or improved damage.

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• 6. Hong Kong on Location

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  More than 20,000 photographs came out of one research trip. The art designers spent seven days in Hong Kong, studying the environment and photographing it as a reference for the game's streets. They walked to places such as clubs and malls. They also interviewed former Triad members and retired officers of the Hong Kong Police Force Anti-Triad unit, and those conversations inspired narratives and character design.

  The sound designers stayed for ten days. On weekdays they oversaw dialogue sessions, and at weekends they captured ambient noise around the city.

  The early dialogue was recorded in Los Angeles with local Asian actors. Much of it was later re-recorded in Hong Kong through a specialist company called Drum Music. The workflow was awkward, with scripting handled in Vancouver and recording done in Hong Kong. Some developers worried about the language of the background chatter. The sound design team prevailed in using Hong Kong Cantonese rather than English.

  The in-game radio was handled by Joe Best, who sourced music from various labels. Tsunami Music, Warp Records, Ninja Tune and Roadrunner Records licensed tracks and lent their names to the in-game stations. Voice actors for the station presenters were auditioned and recruited through Tsunami Music, and DJs from companies such as Kerrang! also took on presenter roles.

  The soundtrack also includes original Chinese songs by Nathan Wang, composed in the style of Cantopop and Mandopop.

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• 7. Launch and Verdict

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  The game reached North America on the 14th of August 2012, Australia on the 16th and Europe on the 17th. Japan received it on the 27th of September under the title Sleeping Dogs: Hong Kong Secret Police. That version was censored to pass the Japanese ratings board CERO. It added penalties for attacking civilians, removed the street race flagger and softened a sex scene. Outside Japan, Namco Bandai Partners worked with Square Enix to publish and market the game across Asia.

  Cross-promotions were unusually playful. Steam buyers received an eight item pack for Team Fortress 2 and a Hong Kong-themed level for that game called Kong King. Owners of Just Cause 2 unlocked an outfit styled after that game's hero, Rico Rodriguez, which boosts Shen's action hijack statistics and extends the range for taking over enemy vehicles.

  Metacritic described the reviews as "generally favorable". At the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the game was nominated for "Action Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Story".

  Critics singled out the combat. Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer called it "robust and intuitive". Carolyn Petit of GameSpot and Ben Wilson of PlayStation Official Magazine found it enjoyable and highlighted the environmental attacks as "empowering and effective". Critics were just as warm about the experience system. Allistair Pinsof of Destructoid called it "one of the greatest innovations Sleeping Dogs brings to the genre".

  The city also drew praise. Colin Moriarty of IGN described Hong Kong as "alive and well-populated". Edge wrote that the game offered "a view of Asia through the filter of its action film industry". Reviewers also admired the double life at the heart of the story. Andy Kelly of Computer and Video Games thought Shen's two-faced nature was the main entertainment of the missions.

  The complaints were technical. Kelly said that "everything in the distance looks like it's been smeared in Vaseline". Edge found character animations "robotic". Moriarty, Hollander Cooper and Edge all criticized the camera, which Moriarty found worst during driving.

  In the United Kingdom, Sleeping Dogs was the best-selling game in its first week, with the fifth-highest first-week sales of any 2012 release. It stayed on top in week two despite a 15% drop, and later returned to first place. By year's end it was the 20th best-selling title in the country, and the best-selling original game. In the United States, NPD Group ranked it sixth in August 2012, at 172,000 units, without counting PC downloads.

  Square Enix reported 1.5 million units sold by the end of September 2012. President Yoichi Wada said the company may have had unreasonably high expectations and that such games tend to sell steadily over a long period in the West. On the 26th of March 2013, the company expected about 1.75 million sales for the year. On the 10th of September 2013, it grouped Sleeping Dogs with Tomb Raider and Hitman: Absolution. All three were successful as games, Square Enix said, but fell short of sales expectations and were deemed "failures".

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• 8. Afterlives

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  Square Enix announced six months of downloadable content, and the packs added outfits, vehicles, experience boosts, races, weapons, missions and fight movesets. Five content packs arrived in total, including the Dragon Master Pack in November 2012. The last piece was the "Wheels of Fury" supercar expansion in February 2013.

  Three expansions told new stories. Nightmare in North Point, released in October 2012, drew on Chinese horror and folklore, with jiangshi, the hopping Chinese vampires. The ghost of a gangster named Smiley Cat, killed by Uncle Po, abducts Not Ping. Shen learns that burning the last remnant of Smiley Cat's body will defeat him, so he incinerates the ghost's little finger. As the couple walk away, Not Ping turns toward the camera in a freeze frame and smiles as her eyes glow.

  Zodiac Tournament followed in December 2012 and added an island with fight arenas. Inspector Teng sends Shen to investigate an illegal fighting tournament. After winning lethal matches, he pursues the Tournament Master, who offers to share his earnings in return for his life. Shen refuses and snaps the man's neck.

  Year of the Snake arrived in March 2013 with six missions set after the main story. A demoted Shen, now a patrolman, investigates terror attacks by a cult that believes cleansing Hong Kong residents will bring spiritual salvation. The expansion lets him tase and arrest civilians and criminals.

  The Definitive Edition came out on the 10th of October 2014 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It bundled all 24 earlier downloadable items and made changes to graphics, gameplay and setting based on community feedback. Feral Interactive released a macOS version in March 2016.

  A sequel never got that far. In early 2013, United Front was working on one that would have followed Shen into China's Pearl River Delta alongside a "conflicted, corrupt partner" named Henry Fang. Players could have arrested any character in the world and steered a branching story that swapped between the two men. A companion mobile game would have let players run the police force as Inspector Teng. The plans were scrapped in late 2013, before production began.

  A spin-off, Triad Wars, was confirmed in October 2013. It was a PC online game with massively multiplayer elements, in which the goal was to "rise to power as a criminal kingpin of the Triad underworld". The same map as the original game was used. An announcement trailer premiered on the 22nd of September 2014, and beta testing began in early 2015. In December 2015, the studio closed it with a statement admitting that "it wasn't right for many of you."

  A film has had the longest run of false starts. In March 2017, a live action adaptation was announced, with Neal H. Moritz producing and Donnie Yen as Wei Shen. In January 2025, Yen said the project was no longer in the works. He told Polygon that he had spent "many, many years on it". Simu Liu then said he was working to bring the film to life. IGN reported in February 2025 that pre-production had started, with Liu cast as Shen and executive producing alongside Story Kitchen. Tze Chun finished a first draft of the script in October 2025, and in December Liu revealed that Timo Tjahjanto is set to direct.

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