Sleeping Dogs designer says he thinks a sequel could happen but it would need ‘a bit of planetary alignment’

A game designer who worked on Sleeping Dogs says he thinks a sequel could be possible one day, but only if a number of factors fell into place.

The original Sleeping Dogs was a 2012 open-world action adventure game published by Square Enix and developed by Canadian studio United Front Games.

The game was generally well-received and a sequel was planned but cancelled in early 2013. A online spin-off called Triad Wars was then put into development, but cancelled in late 2015 after a beta testing period.

In an interview with FRVR, Alastair Cornish – who worked as a designer on Sleeping Dogs and went on to become VP of design at Gears Tactics studio Splash Damage – says he was disappointed that Sleeping Dogs 2 was cancelled but not particularly surprised given the costs involved.

“It was super disappointing because there was a ton of space there and you’ve got a fantastic team,” he explained. “The funny thing with teams is that you’ve got to really look at where they’re positioned. Where’s the studio? What are the studio overheads? What’s the rent like?

“How expensive are the teams, and are there competitive studios around there that are driving up wages? And in terms of United Front Games and Vancouver, boy, that was the epicentre of that happening. That’s happened a few times, where a sequel would be possible, but not really at the costs.”

Cornish said he did think a return for Sleeping Dogs was possible, but noted that it would be a big undertaking and would need to planned sensibly were it to happen.

“People love open world titles,” he said. “I think it depends on what fidelity you’re going for. It depends on the market you’re targeting. It depends on what tools or techniques have helped bring down, if any, the cost of development.

“Never say never in game dev, so I think it could happen, but you would need a bit of planetary alignment, right? You’d need really passionate people with a lot of different strings to their bow who are really tight about where they’re spending, really smart about where they’re spending, really honest with themselves about what’s working and what’s not.”

Actor Simu Liu previously said he wants to make a Sleeping Dogs movie and game

Cornish also suggested that were a theoretical Sleeping Dogs 2 to go down the open-world route again, it would need to use it well and justify the need to go down that route instead of a more linear action adventure.

“Sometimes with open world games, why is it even an open world game?” he explained. “You have games that feel like there’s too many cookie cutter activities, too many whatever collectathons, and they’ve made a bloated world to have a bloated world.

Suggesting that there used to be an “arms race” to have the largest open world, he added: “I think we’ve got over that now. I think you get more tightly focused worlds now. I think the whole chasing the bigger map thing now has thankfully died.”

Last year actor Donnie Yen said the film adaptation of Sleeping Dogs – which was first announced back in 2017 – had effectively been cancelled.

Marvel star Simu Liu, however – who played the titular role of Shang-Chi in the Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – said last year that he was “working with the rights holders to bring Sleeping Dogs to the big screen”, adding: “First a movie, then a sequel game for everyone… that’s always been the dream.”