Video games set in Hong Kong, from ‘the world’s worst’ to a cyberpunk cat game to one compared to Grand Theft Auto

Upcoming game Stray, where you play as a cyberpunk cat prowling a futuristic, neon-lit city, is far from the only video game inspired by Hong Kong
The gaming industry has been a fan of Hong Kong as far back as 1984 – notable titles include one dubbed ‘the world’s worst’ and a ‘Hong Kong Grand Theft Auto’

Donnie Yen

Jonathan White

Published: 7:45pm, 13 Jan 2022

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After a disappointing 2021, gamers are looking forward to a bumper 2022 with the promised release of several long-awaited titles across consoles.

Chief among them is Stray, which was pushed back to an “early 2022” release before the Annapurna Interactive showcase last July. The game, previously with an October 2021 release, is going to be six years in the making by the time it arrives. Annapurna Interactive is a game publisher that works with game creators from around the world.

Originally referred to as “HK Project”, Stray has remained shrouded in mystery and has been turning heads since it was first announced in 2016.

There’s little wonder why – you can count on one (virtual) paw the number of games that let you play as a cyberpunk cat prowling what looks like a futuristic city that takes its template from Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City.

Stray, however, is far from the first game to take its inspiration from Hong Kong.

Much like how the global film industry has called upon the city as both backdrop and character, the gaming industry has been a fan of Hong Kong as far back as Travel with Trashman (for the ZX Spectrum in 1984).

The video game Travel with Trashman for the ZX Spectrum.

The game, in which players control a globe-trotting rubbish collector, is still available on emulators, with one level involving the clean up of the streets of Hong Kong. If that seems odd, it seems stranger still that the city appeared as one of the national teams in Fifa Soccer 95 (Sega Genesis, 1994), when it had only 58 teams to pick from.

Recent years have seen something of a boom in the depiction of Hong Kong in video games, and there are more than 260 games with links to the city listed on the “Hong Kong In Video Games” blog. (Scenes from some of these games have been turned into artwork that is now on show at the M+ museum in Hong Kong.)

Just as with the films that take their inspiration from Hong Kong, these games have been a mixed bag. In fact, Hong Kong 1997 (Super Nintendo, 1995) has been likened to the cinematic catastrophe The Room (often referred to as “the worst movie ever made”). The unlicensed shooter has been dubbed “the world’s worst video game” and taken on similar cult status.

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The concept that video games can be an art form has long been established, and some give it as much credence in that area as cinema. There has certainly been crossover between the two, and Hong Kong is no exception when it comes to that mix.

The Hong Kong Massacre (PC/PlayStation 4, 2019) not only took inspiration from Hong Kong but the bullet-time cinematography of John Woo. It’s something of a cult classic, with its retro, top-down gameplay, one-shot kills and atmospheric imagery. It’s also harder than a first Cantonese lesson (hard) – not always the case with modern games.

While Hong Kong Massacre merely took inspiration from Woo’s work, Stranglehold (PC/Xbox 360/PlayStation 3, 2007) was made in collaboration with the renowned director himself. It was billed as a sequel to the hit 1992 film Hard Boiled and saw Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat return as the police inspector Tequila Yuen.

The city resonates with people well beyond its borders. Hong Kong Massacre is a labour of love from its Swedish developer Vreski, despite the atmospheric take on the city coming from films, not real life. Stray’s developers are French but they also turned to Hong Kong to add to the game’s je ne sais quoi.

Stray’s take on the Kowloon Walled City is far from the first – that honour perhaps goes to 1997 adventure game Kowloon’s Gate (PlayStation). Call of Duty: Black Ops (PC/Xbox 360/PlayStation 3, 2010) had a mission set in the Kowloon Walled City, too.

Cage, a Windows-only demo in 2018, is also set in the Kowloon Walled City, this time during a 1980s summer holiday. Developed in Hong Kong by Scaffold, the puzzler wears its local knowledge on its sleeve, serving as a love letter to a city disappeared.

Elsewhere, Sleeping Dogs (PC/Xbox 360/PlayStation 3, 2012) – best described as a Hong Kong Grand Theft Auto – took in the Kowloon Walled City in its own facsimile of the “Fragrant Harbour”, replete with Cantonese banter worthy of any film.

“What struck me were the differences in Hong Kong,” Sleeping Dogs developer Jeff O’Connell said back in 2012, as later reported by Asia Times. “You can be on Kowloon and have the night markets, the lights, smells and all the people. Then you can be amid Central at the IFC tower, and it’s just overwhelming.

“The blend of eastern and western, old and new – it’s a city of contrasts and we hope we’ve captured that.”

Sleeping Dogs is one heck of a game. The promised sequels have not seen the light of day, but it is being made into a film, with actor Donnie Yen Ji-dan on board.

In some ways, video games act like any other mass media in their ability to document a place at a given moment in time.

Victoria Harbour has been the backdrop of a variety of games including Inspector Gadget: Mission 1 – Global Terror! (PC, 1992), OutRunners (Sega Genesis, 1994), Dead or Alive 3 (Xbox, 2001) and Gran Turismo 4 (PlayStation 2, 2005). The city’s iconic Peninsula hotel appears in the Hong Kong of 1987-set Shenmue 2 (Dreamcast, 2001) – as does the Kowloon Walled City.

The most famous of all video game interpretations of Hong Kong might be Microsoft Flight Simulator for Windows 95 (PC, 1996), in a level where it allowed bedroom pilots to land at the iconic Kai Tak Airport, which closed in July 1998. So beloved was the stage that it appeared in Flight Simulator X in 2006 and as an add-on for the 2020 version of the game.

A scene from Microsoft Flight Simulator for Windows 95 featuring the Hong Kong skyline.

The airport also featured as the backdrop for Hong Kong stages in SNK’s Real Bout Fatal Fury Special (arcade, 1997) and Capcom’s Street Fighter Alpha 3 (arcade, 1998). That wasn’t the first Street Fighter to feature Hong Kong – that honour goes to Super Street Fighter 2 with its version of Har Par Mansion in Tai Hang on Hong Kong Island.

These game versions of the old airport are arguably more fitting tributes to it than the Kai Tak Sports Park that will soon sit on that land in reality.

Proof that Stray is not the only video game to look to a Hong Kong of the future is shoot-’em-up classic Metal Slug 2 (arcade, 1998), set in 2029.

In some cases, that is now a future that has passed. Perfect Dark Zero (Xbox 360, 2005) and Call of Duty: Strike Team (iOS/Android, 2013) were both set in 2020, while the future of Battlefield 4 (PC/PlayStation 3/PlayStation 4/Xbox 360/Xbox One, 2013) is set to pass at some point this decade.

There are still futures yet to come, such as that in Deus Ex (Eidos Interactive, Microsoft PC/Mac/PlayStation 2, 2000), set in a dystopian 2052, or the more recent Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story (PC/Mac, 2020). Set in 2083, the game mixes cyberpunk elements and Cantonese folklore, and migrated to consoles last year. The Xbox One version was released on January 12.

There is clearly an appetite for cyberpunk takes on a Hong Kong of the future – as the successful Kickstarter campaign for Shadowrun: Hong Kong (Mac/PC, 2015) showed.

The game, set in 2056, earned US$1.2 million from more than 30,000 backers on the crowdfunding site, well over its $100,000 goal. That desire is something that Stray will be looking to sink its claws into when it arrives.

In the meantime, there are plenty of playable versions of Hong Kong for gamers to explore.

Stray is set for release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Xbox in early 2022.

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