Whore of the Orient – How L.A. Noire's Spiritual Successor Might Have Become

Team Bondi, the studio behind L.A. Noire, published by Rockstar Games, was also working on a game called Whore of the Orient. Though set in a different universe, the canceled project was meant to serve as a spiritual successor, building on the ideas and concepts the 2011 detective game introduced.

Meanwhile, Daniel McMahon, a former Team Bondi writer who also worked on L.A. Noire, recently shared new details about the canceled project on Cade Onder's YouTube channel. According to McMahon, Whore of the Orient was meant to feature a dense, dynamic sandbox, similar in spirit to Assassin's Creed Unity, with each street populated by random events. Set in 1930s Shanghai, the story followed a British detective, and one planned mechanic involved learning Chinese, which would deepen investigations and unlock additional dialogue options with NPCs.

Unlike L.A. Noire, which had players solving crimes after the fact, Whore of the Orient was built around preventing them before they happened. Team Bondi also planned to rework interrogations, letting players choose between a good-cop or bad-cop approach, each leading to different outcomes. A more involved combat system was in the works too, leaning toward hand-to-hand combat inspired by the Batman: Arkham games rather than gunplay.

Despite all those ideas, McMahon noted the game was only around 15% complete at the time of cancellation, meaning many of these planned mechanics likely never would have made it into the final product anyway. The project was ultimately shut down due to financial troubles and publisher issues.

Based on McMahon's comments, Whore of the Orient can comfortably join the long list of canceled games with some fascinating potential. Interestingly, L.A. Noire itself has been back in the spotlight recently, thanks to a new report claiming that in 2030 Rockstar Games is planning to release a sequel set in San Francisco. That's still just speculation for now, though some fans think Remedy, fresh off Control Resonant and already collaborating with Rockstar on the Max Payne 1 & 2 Remake, might be the better studio to handle it instead.