Triad Wars is a fun new GTA Online-esque massively multiplayer open world action-adventure from Square Enix and United Front Games, set on the vibrant streets of Sleeping Dogs‘ Hong Kong.
Using Sleeping Dog’s fun blend of driving, gunplay and hand to hand combat, your aim in Triad Wars is to rise through the ranks and become the kingpin of the triad world. There are a variety of different ways you can gain money and power, such as hacking, laundering, abductions, stick-ups, street racing, extortion and many others.
Cars are a big factor in Triad Wars, and they follow the model as format as GTA Online with you able to steal random cars around the city, or unlock specific cars permanently via missions or by purchasing them. Car handling is similar to Sleeping Dogs, and the nifty ability of being able to leap between moving cars makes a welcome return too.
As well as familiar vehicle based gameplay, the satisfyingly visceral and fluid hand to hand combat of Sleeping Dogs carries over to. You’ll unlock skills and weaponry over time too as you level up and work towards becoming Hong Kong’s number one badass.
Sleeping Dogs was a (sleeper) hit when it came out thanks to it’s vibrant game world, fun gameplay and excellent melee combat. Thankfully Triad Wars is very much more of the same, but with massively multiplayer gameplay and a a few unobtrusive F2P elements. It can be compared to GTA Online as it’s an online open world game but in reality Triad Wars feels very different thanks to it’s rpg-esque levelling system, bone crunching combat and larger focus on narrative. Very cool stuff.
Note: This is very much a Beta, and has been having connectivity issues (with the website and the game), so please be patient and bear in mind it’s a work in progress.
Important Note: One game breaking bug we found during play was that the game crashed when you’re asked to equip your first favours. Re-installing didn’t work, the only way we found around it was by creating a new account and starting again with a new faction (Shing W0).
Check Out a Playthough of the first 15 minutes Here
UPDATE: This Beta Is No Longer Available
Played a decent amount of this game. It gets compaired to GTA Online, but that is not a fair comparison. GTA Online has much more to offer. Triad Wars is fun if you want some semi-mindless fun. You are basically grinding your character to raid the bases of other players and gathering economy to prevent others from raiding you. However, it is the same song and dance the entire game. You enter a players “business district”, they all virtually have the same floor plan but replace a fish market here with a bootleg electronics store. Replace the “Glass Joe” guard with “Bruce Lee’ who you have to counter or shoot in the face.
The thing that is enjoyable is it sort of forces you to use your firearms as a last option. Do all the kung-fu you like, use the environment to your hearts content, but pull that gun out and get ready for the gates of hell to unleash their simple AI hatred upon you. Ever thug and wannabee will be blasting fill force until you are stopped.
The “mini-games” symbolized by the red and green markers are a nice break from it all, but they are all identical. Go kill these 5 goons over here, take this car and get it over there, and the only real reward is a extra-time boost that you probably never use.
Driving feels weird at first, but is easy to grasp fairly quickly.
Outrunning the cops can be a real choir, so learn to drive maniacally down alley ways, shoot out a tire, and hope everything falls apart for police.
The most fun is when someone tries to get back on you for raiding. You will be driving through the city, next thing you know an angry horde of motorcyclists will site fire to your butt really quickly. Then the cops will come out of nowhere from all the shooting and killing.
Sadly, for me at least, it was a rare occurrence. While I wouldn’t want to have to do that every time I went after someones stuff, it was the first real excitement I had in the game.
All in all I would give this a 6/10. Something that’s fun to play to kill the time that has a slight objective, but its not the game I day dream about while working my 9-5 and cant wait to get home to play.
Hi Bohity. Thanks for your thoughts on the game! :)