Sleeping Dogs

August 13, 2012ShooterESRB M

Available on

Genres

Overview

About Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs is a third-person open-world action-adventure game set in contemporary Hong Kong. Players control Wei Shen, an undercover police officer who infiltrates a Triad organization called the Sun On Yee. Gameplay emphasizes melee combat using martial arts moves, grapples, and environmental attacks over gunplay, alongside driving, parkour, and open-world exploration. The game features a triple experience system split between Triad, Police, and Face progression paths, each unlocking different abilities and rewards.

Story setup

Wei Shen, a Hong Kong-American police officer and martial artist, returns to Hong Kong on assignment from the SFPD to infiltrate the Sun On Yee, one of the city's most powerful Triad organizations. Reconnecting with his childhood friend Jackie Ma, Shen enters the criminal underworld as a low-level gang member, quickly earning the trust of local boss Winston Chu. As he rises through the ranks, Shen must maintain his cover while feeding intelligence back to his police handlers, all while the Sun On Yee's internal power struggles threaten to consume everyone around him. Caught between his duty as a cop and the bonds he forms with the people he is betraying, Shen finds the line between his identities blurring. When a brutal massacre tears the organization apart and triggers a war for its leadership, Shen is drawn deeper into the violence, forced to question who he can trust on either side of the law.

Reference

At a glance

Released: August 13, 2012
Platforms: PC
Genres: Shooter, Action, Adventure
Play modes: Single Player
Age rating: ESRB M
Time to beat: ~20 hours

Media

Screenshots

Click any screenshot to view it full size.

Playtime

How long to beat

Player-reported completion times for Sleeping Dogs.

Rushed: 17hoursMain story only
Typical: 20hoursStory plus some extras
Completionist: 41hoursEvery side objective too

Estimated from 10 player reports — a small sample, so treat these as approximate.

Playing together

Multiplayer & game modes

Sleeping Dogs offers various play modes for different gaming experiences.

Play Modes

Single Player

Content

Age ratings

How rating boards around the world have classified Sleeping Dogs. Open a board for its content descriptors.

ACBMA 15+

Strong violence, crime themes, coarse language and sexual references

CEROZ

Violence
Crime

CLASS_IND16

Violência (Violence)
Conteúdo Sexual (Sexual Content)
Drogas (Drugs)

ESRBM

Blood and Gore
Use of Drugs
Strong Language
Intense Violence
Sexual Content

GRAC19+

Sexuality
Violence
Language
Alcohol, Tobacco, Drug
Crime, Anti-Social
Gambling

PEGI18

Violence
Drugs
Bad Language

USK18

Also in our guides

Often listed alongside Sleeping Dogs

Titles that appear in the same guides on this site. Grouped by where they show up, not by recommendation.

Coverage

Featured in our articles

This game appears in 1 article on this site.

Best Open World Games for Low-End PCs and Laptops

#10

Sleeping Dogs is the most underrated game on this list. The melee combat system is better than anything Rockstar has built: timed counters, environmental finishers, a progression system that actually changes how fights feel. Hong Kong is a compact city but it is dense with life and character in a way that larger GTA maps often are not. The hardware floor is the reason it sits at ten. It needs a bit more than the oldest machines on this list can offer comfortably. On budget hardware from the last five or six years, though, it runs without drama on medium settings and delivers 15 to 20 hours of a very good crime story.

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Game data and imagery provided by IGDB.com