Nevertheless, the future of the series remained uncertain - until now. Developer United Front Games has confirmed that they are hard at work on Triad Wars, a sequel set within the Sleeping Dogs universe.

It’s rare that a game is saddled with as many expectations as Sleeping Dogs, both from the game’s initial publisher and the one that swooped in to save it from total demise (for those who weren’t keeping track, Activision pulled the plug on the game after ruling that it couldn’t dominate the open world genre entirely). Despite overcoming those hurdles and delivering a well-written, well-acted action title, it still looked as if the game would be sunk by unrealistic expectations.

But today, United Front Games took to their official website today to announce that a sequel to Sleeping Dogs is, in fact, being developed:

The announcement is an excellent bit of news for fans of the game and the Vancouver-based studio, who warn that very little information will be shared about the project until 2014. Until then, fans have no choice but to imagine what settings, characters, or stories Triad Wars might follow, and how the core experience of Sleeping Dogs will be transformed on the next generation of console hardware.

This news is also a grand victory for common sense; heads first began shaking when Activision - the publishers of Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and Blizzard’s PC catalogue - deemed that if the game wasn’t going to be a blockbuster success, it wasn’t worth making. Things seemed to turn around when Square Enix saved the project from the brink, but would later go on to blame a disappointing year on Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution and Tomb Raider, despite the Hong Kong crime adventure selling over 1.5 million copies.

Thankfully, it seems Square Enix has come to their senses, and are embracing Sleeping Dogs as a promising new IP. Whether Triad Wars will continue the story directly or offer a new lens on the game’s central conflict… only time will tell.

We’ll keep you up to date as more information on Triad Wars is released, but for now, what are your hopes in a sequel to Sleeping Dogs? Are there any issues you’d like to see addressed, or is a next-gen version all you would hope for? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Follow Andrew on Twitter @andrew_dyce.

Source: UFG