When Call of Duty mega-publisher, Activision, announced the cull of the Guitar Hero franchise last year, it wasn't the only franchise that got unceremoniously pushed to the wayside. A promising, and up until then, actually almost finished open-world game, known as True Crime: Hong Kong was also somewhat spectacularly shelved, in what seemed like a rash decision.
Just a few weeks before the decision to cancel the game, Activision had flown journalists out to sample the latest build of the game, and almost all were impressed by what they saw. Magazines were set to launch with cover stories praising the game - and then, just like that, it was cancelled. What's worse is that, from all reports, it was shaping up to be one of the more impressive open world games around - a possible contender to Grand Theft Auto's crown - but for Activision, it simply wasn't "good enough".
It even had motorbikes - but that wasn't enough to save it from the cull.
But, in an interesting, and welcome twist, Square Enix have announced that they've purchased the rights to release the game formerly known as True Crime: Hong Kong, although it'll now come bundled with a new name. Letting you play as Detective Wai Shen, you're a local cop working to unravel the Triads across the Hong Kong Island. Although it's unclear whether it'll be 100% accurately mapped, it is known that the game will contain all the local sights, sounds and districts.
Although it's currently unknown when the game will be released, that it's seeing release at all will no doubt come as a relief to the staff of developer's United Front Games, who've spent over three years hard at work on a title that, at the final hurdle, almost didn't make it.
