Sleeping Dogs devs hope to mirror real-life Triad tales
Luke Stratford April 30, 2012 - 7:00 pmNews: United Front reveal their deep research into the Hong Kong underworld, and their plans for Sleeping Dogs.
When your subject matter has been known to ambush people with meat cleavers when they speak out against them, you might be able to forgive Sleeping Dogs developers for being a little coy with how they approach their sbject matter. However, as Jeff O’ Connel, Senior Producer of Sleeping Dogs comments in his interview with Siliconera, one anecdote relayed during their writer’s research into the Triads would put make most stalwart crime fans flinch:
‘Eddie was taking us on a tour of the Island the day after we arrived and telling us about a radio station personality who spoke poorly of the local Triad bosses. That night or that week he was chopped by one of these Triads. They were waiting for him outside of the studio and they chopped him up with cleavers… Eddie no sooner told us this story and we were driving down the street and Eddie points out, “There he is! There’s that guy!” Sure enough, this guy was walking down the street on lunch break or whatever. He was clearly maimed and it was five years or after or something.’
What Sleeping Dogs hopes to capture, he explained, was the more common, everyday style of storytelling that reflects the true lives of the people involved, attempting to capture the ‘subtle dynamics’ of crime families in the same vein as TV series such as The Wire or The Shield.
Design Director Mike Skupa explained the studio’s vision for Sleeping Dogs as a much more grounded portrayal, stating, ‘We really wanted to make sure that the game didn’t come across as a bunch of wanted factions battling it out on the streets at all times. It was important for us to do research and make sure to understand how these organizations actually operated.’
‘That was another key thing for us. Trying to take the true nature of the crime there and trying to create the intense scenario we wanted to build up to in our game without saying, “Hong Kong the streets are littered with assault rifles!” ‘
Sleeping Dogs is scheduled for release on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on August 12th.
