''Whore of the Orient'' is a cancelled

action-adventure The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyli ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

. The game was in development at KMM Interactive Entertainment, a subsidiary of

Kennedy Miller Mitchell Kennedy Miller Mitchell (known before 2009 as Kennedy Miller) is an Australian film, television and video game production house in Potts Point, Sydney, that has been producing television and film since 1978. It is responsible for some of Austra ...

that comprised employees from defunct development houses

Team Bondi Team Bondi Pty. Limited ( ) was an Australian video game developer based in Sydney. The company was founded by creative director Brendan McNamara, formerly of Team Soho, in 2003. The studio's first and only title, the action-adventure game ''L. ...

and

Krome Studios Krome Studios Pty Ltd. is an Australian video game company. Its headquarters were in Brisbane and it previously had offices in Adelaide and Melbourne (Krome Studios Melbourne). Krome Studios is best known for their '' Ty the Tasmanian Tiger'' g ...

. In 2012, the game was targeting a 2015 release, but was confirmed cancelled in 2016, having not had a status update since 2013.

Setting

Set in 1936, the game would have centered around the corrupt city of

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in the hands of Western powers, filled with mob crime and political troubles. The

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

ruthlessly puts down labor movements in an effort to suppress

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

, whilst the International Police Force attempt to maintain peace.

Development

Following the release of ''

L.A. Noire ''L.A. Noire'' is a 2011 action-adventure video game developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games. Set in 1947 Los Angeles, the game follows detective Cole Phelps's rise among the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department as he so ...

'' (2011), Team Bondi sought partnerships with other studios for their next title, similar to their former partnership with

Rockstar Games Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMG Interactive. Foun ...

. It was reported that no studios were interested in forming a partnership due to prior claims of unethical working practices at Team Bondi. In August 2011,

(KMM) bought Team Bondi's assets and intellectual property, and staff were given the option to join KMM. The team was absorbed into KMM Interactive Entertainment, a subsidiary of Kennedy Miller Mitchell, and development on ''Whore of the Orient'' continued. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment was said to have pulled out from their interest in the project sometime in late 2012. In April 2013, it was rumoured that the former Team Bondi team was laid off, and that the game was put on hold. Doug Mitchell of Kennedy Miller Mitchell released a comment stating that the company had not given up on the project, and that they were still seeking the right investor, neither confirming nor denying the status of the former Team Bondi team. In June of that year, KMM received worth of funding for the project from Screen NSW, an Australian trade and investment board. The game was suggested to be a narrative action adventure title similar to ''L.A. Noire'', and the proprietary facial MotionScan technology would also be reused. Early unfinished gameplay footage was leaked in August 2013, depicting the combat-style action. The title of the game was criticised in September 2013; Jieh-Yung Lo, a

City of Monash The City of Monash is a local government area in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne with an area of 81.5 square kilometres and a population of 200,077 people in 2016. Demographics Monash has a diverse pop ...

Councillor, felt that the word "

Orient The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the c ...

" disgraces Chinese culture, and is "very similar to the

N-word In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...

for

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

communities". In June 2016, an interview with ''Whore of the Orient'' producer Derek Proud revealed that the game was effectively cancelled. Proud revealed that the team fought to "the bitter end", but they were unable to save the game and ultimately it was "wrapped-up" by parent company KMM.

References

External links

*{{imdb title, 5038116 Cancelled PlayStation 4 games Cancelled Windows games Cancelled Xbox One games Team Bondi Video games about police officers Video games developed in Australia Video games set in 1936 Video games set in Shanghai