United Front Game’s latest title Sleeping Dogs was in some rocky water not too long ago, back when the title used to be True Crime: Hong Kong. Once Activision dropped its funding for the title last year, Square Enix decided to step in and help the dev team see their project through.
In an interview with AusGamers, UFG’s Jeff O’Connell shared how the studio ended up getting funded by Square Enix, noting that the Hong Kong setting had a lot to do with the publisher’s decision.
They saw the game and right away just said to us “this thing is fun, it’s solid, it’s amazing and we love it and we’d love to work with you guys”.
And for us, we were very confident in the game when we started building it and confidence was a little shakey obviously, so to have Square give us that vote of confidence it really helped bring us back into the black to show you the game here today and I think the reception has been rewarding as well.
O’Connell went on to praise Square for their support and help in making this game become a reality, saying:
So with Square coming along and understanding development, that’s really given us the support and confidence to do what we always wanted to do with the game, which was have the game in Hong Kong, be an undercover cop and offer people the deepest mechanics that they’ve seen in an open-world game.
And for Square, that proposition was exciting for them. They said “First time in Hong Kong; sounds amazing”. There’s not a lot of cop games, so the original in that respect sounds amazing. And the guys that came off Just Cause and Arkham and saw our mechanics, they loved that as well. So for them, there wasn’t a whole lot of need to change elements.
Stay tuned to PlayStation LifeStyle for future developments on United Front Game’s Sleeping Dogs.
