Six months later, in August 2011, Square Enix bought the publishing rights from ActiVision, but renamed the game due to not purchasing the True Crime IP. It is also rumored that many of the development difficulties stemmed from ActiVision demanding a GTA-quality game while providing the developer a much smaller budget. Yet the project was again canceled on February 9, 2011, due to the game’s high development budget and delays, as well as a belief that it was just not up to the standards set by Rockstar's hit. Not only the protagonist was changed into a male, the game was renamed True Crime: Hong Kong, making it the third game in an existing franchise. At this point, however, Treyarch was busy with the Call of Duty series, so the duties were handed to United Front Games. It is speculated that the huge success of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV convinced ActiVision that they needed a sandbox game of their own. ĭevelopment was resumed the following year. However, publisher ActiVision halted the project in 2007 under the belief that a game with a female protagonist would not sell well. This concept was inspired by the hit films Charlie's Angels and Kill Bill.
The game was originally pitched by developer Treyarch as Black Lotus, and was to star an Asian female assassin modeled after Lucy Liu. 20 Sleeping Dogs and True Crime Hong Kong comparison.11.5 Mouse, Keyboard, and Controller Support.
