Sleeping Dogs dev defends Zombie-themed DLC

Zombies are definitely the flavour of the year in the video game industry, with more and more zombie-themed titles and DLC being released ever month. But has the genre worn a little thin? Sleeping Dogs developer United Front Games doesn’t think so, trying their own hand at undead DLC with the release of Nightmare in North Point next week.

Producer Dan Sochan explains what sets their DLC apart from the competition.

Obviously there’s been other games that have done ‘the undead pack’,” Sochan said. “But we didn’t think it was an overdone genre because we’re looking at Chinese folklore.

“We’ve not seen Jiang Shi [a reanimated corpse from Chinese legends] in many games before – they appeared in a Castlevania title, but that’s about it. We’re also taking nods from Hong Kong cinema, films such as Big Trouble Little China. So we thought we could bring something that’s still fresh and interesting. It’s over the top, a bit cheeky.”

Nightmare in North Point will offer a separate storyline from the main campaign, and also allows the developers to bring back dead enemies for a second round. Sochan said you’ll be getting about two hours of story content, with an extra hour of secondary missions on top of that.

As for more DLC – there’s plenty coming.

“We have several more big packs coming out in the next few months that explore other parts of Hong Kong cinema,” Sochan said. “We’ll be announcing the next pack within the next few weeks.”

All of the DLC will follow a similar style to Nightmare in North Point – adding new storylines rather than developing the main plot.

“We’ve chosen not to extend storylines from the main game,” Sochan explained. “Instead we’ll be focusing on a different theme or a particular character that players have liked, such as [chauffeur sidekick] Old Salty Crab.”

As for sequels, Sochan isn’t saying, but did acknowledge that the new IP had gotten a lot of support from fans.