Square Enix is a publisher historically known for delivering traditional role-playing experiences, and, more recently, resurrections of some of the industry’s finest franchises courtesy of a partnership with Eidos. This fall, alongside development studio United Front, the esteemed publisher’s London branch will be stepping into unfamiliar territory: open-world action with a cop-drama backdrop.

Entitled Sleeping Dogs, Square Enix’s newest title will place players firmly in the role of Wei Shen, a cop working undercover to implode the Hong Kong Triads, a notorious crime syndicate, from within. In doing so, Wei will travel all throughout the bustling streets of Hong Kong encountering plenty of action-packed sequences to be settled with the sophistication of automatic weaponry or the sheer discipline of the martial arts.

It’s the latter of those two options that sees the most focus in Sleeping Dogs, says Square Enix London’s general manager, Lee Singleton. “Sleeping Dogs has one of the best melee combat systems out there – it’s super brutal with devastating takedown moves, and when added to UFG’s proven heritage in driving games, a first class story and the vibrant backdrop of the Hong Kong underworld we get a fiery recipe with fun written all over it.”

Sleeping Dogs will be made available in the second half of 2012 for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows. For more information on the newly announced project, be sure to check out the game’s official web page and ‘like’ the official Facebook page.