it was known as Black Lotus

For those that don’t know the story behind this game’s development, let’s go on a quick history lesson, shall we? Sleeping Dogs used to be known by a different name – True Crime: Hong Kong (although even before that it was known as Black Lotus). Activision didn’t see the game being as much of a success as they had hoped it would be because of different delays, so they cancelled development. Square Enix then swooped in and picked up the rights to the game (but not the name), and kept the same team that was originally working on it. Because of this, the core of the game was able to remain unchanged, and ended up becoming more polished. History lesson over – back to the review.