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.