Why Sleeping Dogs is the most interesting open-city game of recent years
With Yakuza back in the spotlight again and Shenmue reappearing after 20 years in the wilderness, I've been thinking a lot about Sleeping Dogs, United Front's open-world crime epic that is often considered a cousin to Yakuza. Yet while Shenmue and Yakuza are quintessentially Japanese games, while Sleeping Dogs is a Canadian production set in Hong Kong. If these games were restaurants and I wandered into Sleeping Dogs expecting to dine on tuna sashimi, I would rightfully be scorned.
Nonetheless, I've been looking for an excuse to write about Sleeping Dogs for ages, and as I wandered around Yakuza 0's Kamurocho district for the first time earlier this year, the aesthetic similarities were enough for me to latch onto like a dog that has just been aroused from slumber by having its tail stood on.
This is because Sleeping Dogs is by some margin my favourite open-city game; one that takes the familiar Grand Theft Auto template, adds some fantastic embellishments that more developers should imitate, and places it in one of the most visually distinctive and interesting virtual cities ever designed. I don't think this latter point is appreciated enough. Making an open world of any kind feel distinct is a huge challenge in and of itself. It's like cooking a meal to serve a large number of people. You need to add a large number of ingredients to ensure everyone is sufficiently fed, but if you just throw everything into the pot all you'll end up with is a bland mulch. This is especially easy to do with GTA-style games, because modern cities are often so similarly structured. There's always a commercial hub. There's always a dockyards.
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