Sleeping Dogs Penalizes Players For Harming Civilians, But Only In Japan

Square Enix will release Sleeping Dogs in Japan a month after its North American release under the name Sleeping Dogs Hong Kong Secret Police. The Japanese release is rated CERO Z, which makes it an adults only game you have to request at a store counter.

Sleeping Dogs still has a few cuts like an event scene where a person’s organs are exposed was modified. Another scene with a sexual reference was cleaned up with alternate camerawork. Square Enix also made one character who signals the start of a street race invincible, I suppose because players could run him or her over. Perhaps the most notable difference in the Japanese version is Square Enix added a penalty for attacking civilians in some missions.

Other than those changes, Sleeping Dogs Hong Kong Secret Police is the same game as Sleeping Dogs just with Japanese subtitles. Sleeping Dogs still has English and in some parts Cantonese voiceovers.

Sleeping Dogs comes out in North America on August 14 and in Japan on September 27.