United Front Games have shared a little insight regarding the creation of the NPCs and supporting cast that Wei Shen encounters during his undercover adventures in Sleeping Dogs. This includes early concept art for some of the game’s characters and bits and pieces of information regarding how and why they were changed for the final game. You can read the full piece here, but we’ve picked a few quotes out below:
“Pendrew changed the moment we cast Tom Wilkinson. His voice really drove that change. I don’t think we could have gotten away with the design above with that voice. You hear Tom and it just doesn’t match that design. Pendrew immediately needs to be someone commanding and who has it together.”
“Those [second and third illustrations] are designs for a character named Fifi Mao, who was dropped from the script. Fifi was an aging but famous Hong Kong Actress who was connected to the Triads. She was in the story to underscore the Triads’ connections to the Hong Kong film business. In the 80’s and 90’s the Triads were firmly entrenched in the Hong Kong film industry.”
“As we got further into the game, we started refining the look of Winston’s gang, which involve heavy tattooing. It was difficult to achieve the look of Winston’s hair that was captured in the concept and got better results when we made it darker. It became clear Mrs Chu needed to get a little tougher looking as the story began to develop, and we learn some of the things of which she’s capable.”
Sleeping Dogs is available on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
