![]() ![]() I think the biggest change was in the overall tone of the story, the presentation of the game flow, how the game ramps up. They didn't feel there was any need to make everything obvious right away an open-world game is one that unfolds over 30 hours – you don't have to set it all up in the first sixty minutes, you don't have to have a singular motivation – the characters can develop. So they really understood the dynamics of open-world game design? Yes. And throughout the development we benefitted form their experience working on titles like Just Cause 2. So right away there was a personal connection and they got what we wanted to do with the game. Their producers really were old-skool gamers they'd been working in games since the eighties, as had many staff in our studio. Right away it felt like a very different relationship to the one we had with Activision. We talked to them on the phone, they came to Vancouver and met with us. But it was rough times for us, we had to downsize our team within a couple of weeks, and you begin to question a lot of things – we'd been working on the game for three and a half years at that point and you pour your heart and soul into it.īut within a couple of weeks we heard that Square had played the game and were interested in it and they wanted to speak to us – it was a ray of hope. Activision were very respectful in how they went about informing us of the decision they let go hundreds of their employees that same day, they cancelled Guitar Hero – you could tell that it wasn't an easy decision to make. How did that go down internally? Did you think it was all over? It was a terrible time really. And we were fortunate enough in having an actor like Will Yun Lee who could pull off that sort of performance.īut you made changes to the feel of the game to fit with True Crime – and then in February 2011, the game was effectively canned. Look at the latest James Bond movies, and the way Daniel Craig plays the character – is he really a good guy? He's sort of a mercenary. ![]() Look at the cop shows that have been successful – The Wire, The Shield – every character is ambiguous. Of course, they were both about cops, but we thought that times had changed and that people wanted something else it felt like the opportunity was there to make a more mature title.Ĭertainly TV was going in that direction at the time. Obviously, while those games were enjoyed by a lot of people, we felt our concept was different. We wanted the tone to be more like an HBO cop show.īut, I suppose Activision had enjoyed some success with True Crime, which was much more of a Hollywood-style treatment of the genre. And amazingly, that concept was very similar to the game we ended up releasing.īut what happened was, they liked the idea, but at the time they wanted to push it more toward the flavour of True Crime – and obviously they attached the brand to it. We met with Activision and back then, they knew they wanted to get back into the urban open-world genre they had a prototype on the go, but they asked us to come up with a concept – which we did. It was a very small crew at that point there were about 10 of us in a tiny little office. ![]() So, how did Black Lotus become True Crime: Hong Kong? What happened? The first meetings around this game were in the fall of 2007. So how did UFG create such a solid and entertaining gangland romp, despite the chaotic development process? We spoke to the game's senior producer, Jeff O'Connell to find out. It had promise.Īnd then came Activision, a tarnished license and, eventually, the threat of cancellation. But it was a dark, brutal and interesting concept. ![]() It was an ambitious project for United Front Games, a Vancouver studio that had been formed only a couple of months before by ex-staff from nearby publishers such as EA and Rockstar. This engaging thriller started out two years ago as Black Lotus, a mature open-world adventure set in Hong Kong and heavily influenced by the city's action movie directors: Ringo Lam, Johnnie To, John Woo. Somewhere toward that end of the spectrum is Sleeping Dogs, the unexpected summer hit that's keeping Darksiders 2 from the top of the charts. ![]()
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