Square Enix may not let Kane and Lynch's 'Sleeping Dogs' lie

by Jessica Conditt on Jan 24th 2012 10:00PM

Square Enix has trademarked the name "Sleeping Dogs," which could be a canine-based Final Fantasy title, Hitman with a Scooby-Doo-inspired sidekick, or, most likely, another Kane and Lynch game. Yes, most likely -- we never said most desirably.

The previous Kane and Lynch title was Dog Days, and while it struggled to receive critical and commercial praise, Square Enix has hinted that the series may not be dead after all. Eidos "life president" Ian Livingstone said as much at the end of 2010 in an interview with Eurogamer: "We haven't made any announcements about Kane & Lynch going forward, but we all know that Kane and Lynch are two amazing characters who have a lot of brand equity," Livingstone hinted. "People like those guys, so they're not going to disappear."

Also, developer IO Interactive put out a suspicious job listing for people to work on an unannounced, third-person, AAA action title in September 2011. Again, "Sleeping Dogs" could be Square's answer to Nintendogs, but for now the evidence is piling up like a stack of old laundry against Kane and Lynch.

Source: CVG, NeoGAF

Tags: Eidos, IO-Interactive, kane-and-lynch-2, kane-and-lynch-2-dog-days, microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, Square-Enix, xbox

Reader Comments (48)

Soon there will be more Kane and Lynch games than Timesplitters games. What a world we live in.

@slickie

Did either of the Kane & Lynch games outsell Mirror's Edge?

@SirUrza

oh please, everyone who ever played Mirror's Edge knows that it's too niche to appeal to a large audience. female protagonist, parkour style first-person platforming, not a lot of gunplay (if any)...i'm pretty sure that all 20 of us who loved the game have already voiced our feelings on its commercial unsuccess numerous times already. EA sucks...lets just let it go already...

@Liquidfingers

I'm just trying to understand the benchmark for not only getting a sequel, but becoming a trilogy.

@Liquidfingers

Make that 21 people who loved it

*Starts playing Paul van Dyk - Still Alive (Remix)*

*Starts frowning wishing to play a part 2*

@Stevetrop Man of Mystery

I've rarely (if ever) seen and heard a game with music and visuals so perfectly suited for each other. Gives the game an atmosphere I never encountered in any other form of art.

I hope they make a sequel at some point.

@slickie The irony being, the Kane and Lynch characters are actually good characters - great even. Just IO Interactive keeps making shitty games with these two guys in them. Maybe if Square Eidos gave the IP to another one of their teams to do the third installment, they'd actually wind up with a quality game in the series for once.

Looking at what Square Eidos has been producing of late (Deus Ex (Eidos Montreal), Just Cause 2 (Avalanche Studios), Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rock Steady), the new Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics), etc., the company is just pumping out quality games, and obviously have quite a few quality teams crafting them. And let's face facts, IO Interactive have been sorely lagging behind the quality the rest of the company is producing. If IO can't manage to knock Hitman: Absolution out of the park, then Square Eidos should seriously reconsider the working relationship they have with the studio, and give Kane & Lynch to someone else who can actually make a quality product with the IP.

@Tachyonic Cargo

I thoroughly enjoyed Kane and lynch 2 because the two main characters are so good. I think it's better than a lot of games that have great mechanics and terrible stories.

Kane & Lynch confirmed for Dissidia 3?

@Faceless Troll

Theatrythm: Kane and Lynch

@Faceless Troll

There's a Dissidia 2?

@Faceless Troll

You just made me think about how awesome a Vita Dissidia game could be...

Thank you!

...imaging an "Army of Two" cross over with "Kain & Lynch".

I'd envision it being the first action game to allow you a suicide option to avoid interaction with the "heroes".

@CaptainProtonX Maybe Kane & Lynch will show up in Kingdom Hearts 3.

Damnit! Where is Freedom Fighters 2!? This is preposterous!

Seriously, they should be trademarking the third Freedom Fighters by now. Freedom Fighters 2 should be found, fast, and published by yesterday.

I really, really, really hope this is just a multiplayer PSN/XBLA/Steam downloadable title, because that is the sole redeeming element of this mediocre IP that IO/Eidos/Square-Enix are so hopelessly clinging to.

@Lerkero

Dude I totally forgot about that game! Where the hell is Freedom Fighters 2???

Maybe people would like those guys if they starred in a game that didn't bore me to death before the demo was even over.

it's hard to pinpoint where exactly IO went wrong with this whole Kane & Lynch thing. i mean, the concept was cool, have a crime based game with hints of Hitman & Freedom Fighters, heists, and plenty of violence, but something just went terribly, terribly wrong on the development front. that's a real shame, because i want to like them, i really do. Hitman is one of my most favorite franchises ever and Freedom Fighters was fantastic, but as it is now these games stink worse than year old cat farts in a jar.

@Liquidfingers It's pretty easy to see exactly where they went wrong. The mechanics of the first game were positively terrible and unfun to play.

@Faceless Troll

oh yeah, that's what happened! nailed it. :D

K&L2 seems to have accumulated something of a cult following since its release. I wouldn't be surprised to see another game

It's probably because the multiplayer is fantastic, at least when you're playing with a group that knows what's what.

I really enjoyed the first game but didn't ever get around to playing the 2nd one. Anybody else that enjoy the 1st one like the 2nd one?

@MarkezJM yep. Me.

@MarkezJM i liked both, but wasn't too happy with the way 2 felt. Idk why they switched the camera up the way they did. I'd still play a third one tho. I actually do like the characters

This will most likely be a social game on Facebook starring Shadow's dog from FFVI. Most likely.

You know I actually enjoyed both of the Kane and Lynch games.
If we can finally see IO put the effort into a third game like we're seeing with hitman, we might be in for something good.

Not to mention with the ending of K&L2 it had to get a sequel.
I would've been mad if they pulled a psi-ops with that.

I loved both the Kane and Lynch games. I believe they will be looked back on in a far more favorable light than they are seen now.

I actually enjoyed Dog Days though it's obvious that it was freakishly short. Hope they correct this problem instead of mostly focusing on multiplayer.

Honestly, I think the Kane and Lynch is one of the worst games I ever played. Both the 1st and 2nd games were just not good. I'm amazed that a company with such high profile games like Square even allowed for a sequel of this game.

hey Dog Days was a million times better then COD 15 and I didnt see anything negative about that game

If they remove the dodgy youtube style "video" perspective i might be inclined to buy/play the next one. I loved the first one, the second however after playing them demo i decicded to skip entirely, the grainy camera was just not something i could look past.

Its not even as though someone could of been wandering behind them capturing everything, that person would of been dead in seconds in most gunfights.

And that for me was what took me away pretty much forever from the series, i will remember the first one with love, unless they choose to come bk to a normal style camera with no grainy shit, buffering (seriously wtf?) and everything else they added for the 2nd game to make it look "authentic" (again, wtf?) I won't be coming back.

If they do come back to the first ones camera styles and decentish gfx, i'll be first in line!

@KillerC

I'm sure the camera effect was only used to hide the poor quality graphics.

They can make any excuse they want, I won't believe them.

I thought the first Kane and Lynch was actually fairly fun... Don't really see why the series has so much hate :/

The online Fragile Alliance mode imo had a really cool concept. It was pretty fun to strategically backstab my entire team at times (tossing a grenade at them when they were in an enclosed area, or just mowing them down when they were distracted by all the looting, and so forth), and also it was fun to just work as a team and take out anyone who tried to betray at times too. Also I thought the first game's story was pretty decent, though I played through that with my brother in offline co-op so maybe it's not as fun solo or something.

Didn't play the second one though. Sounds like they kind of screwed that one up quite a bit.

Hopefully if they make a third one it'll deliver where the other two apparently didn't. Would be cool if they brought back more bank heist stuff like in the first game. Especially with Lynch's crazy hallucinations.

@Sorithal

Personally, I thought Kane and Lynch was pretty good.

Am I the only that enjoyed it? I mean the story was quite dull but the multiplayer and arcade was fun, where you had to be suspicious of everyone. Sadly no one plays online anymore :'(.

Where is my Just Cause 3?

The proper way to play K&L2 is co-op. It's crappy single player, but enjoyable with a buddy.

Plus it's only 3.5-4 hours long, which means you can tank it in 1-3 sessions depending on your schedule.

Time to out this dog to sleep!

@Anarqi *put

While the kane and lynch characters could make for a pretty good game, neither the 1st one nor the 2nd managed to make them worth playing a third time, i say let this series either go or get some new blood in to make this a series truly worth playing.

Is that Waingro?

Played the demo for the last Kane and Lynch game and didn't like it due to control issues etc. but holly crap, the graphics at certain times were so good it was like real life!

If they can have those graphics and better controls, they could make a really incredible game!

Wrong Kain.

I enjoyed Dog Days.. There were things I didn't agree with, but overall a great game.

Surely they can't be making money on these, right? I thought the first one was pretty atrocious and from what I've heard the sequel was worse.

K&L2 was awesome, I want to see another one

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Square Enix may not let Kane and Lynch's 'Sleeping Dogs' lie

Reader Comments (48)

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:06PM slickie said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:22PM SirUrza said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:34PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:55PM SirUrza said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:09PM Stevetrop Man of Mystery said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 5:08AM Pure Black World Tendency said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 6:29AM Tachyonic Cargo said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 9:31AM eat it said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:10PM Faceless Troll said

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Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:22PM ItsameMatt03 said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:53PM liquidsoap89 said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:17PM CaptainProtonX said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:33PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:25PM Lerkero said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:34PM Granger said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 2:32AM Teeree said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:26PM Mike Kelehan said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:28PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:34PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:42PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:29PM gatotsu911 said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:39PM Granger said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:38PM MarkezJM said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:12PM MJD8000 said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:13PM blessrok said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:45PM serialsleeper said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:03PM Jawmuncher said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:07PM MJD8000 said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:13PM CarmineSaved said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:20PM Yigytugd said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:28PM MasterBrief said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:31PM KillerC said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 11:56PM liquidsoap89 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 12:45AM Sorithal said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 2:34AM ovoon said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:17AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:17AM Vidaluko said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 2:02AM Pinjabot said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 3:34AM Anarqi said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 3:34AM Anarqi said

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