Have you ever played a GTA-like game and thought, yeah, this feels familiar, but can it compete with my favorite GTA games? That’s where this comparison comes from.
We all know GTA V sits at the top when it comes to open world design. Even the older GTA games still hold up in a lot of ways. That’s why so many games end up borrowing their formula. Big urban city, driving supercars, with tons of mini games, all in a crime-theme focused world. You’ve seen it a bunch of times.
Most of those games try their best to be the next GTA killer or at least earn the silver podium spot when trying to find an urban crime simulator, but honestly, not many of them really land it. Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row The Third are two of the few that actually stick. They still don’t hit GTA V levels, but they sit right under it in a way that feels earned. Both of them have their own twist on how an urban open world should be, even though they go in completely different directions.
They each have clear strengths, clear weaknesses, and when you break them down through actual open world experience, they end up being way closer than you might expect. That’s why I wanted to put them head to head, so you can decide which one you are going to play while waiting for GTA VI.
What makes each game different from GTA V? / How Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row 3 Break Away from GTA
Both Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row 3 are games that are similar to GTA, at least on the surface level, but when you really look at the games, there are clear differences that make them unique from Trevor’s psychotic tantrums in GTA V.
On paper, Sleeping Dogs looks like a straight up GTA clone. Big city, crime story, cars, guns, the usual stuff. But the moment you get into your first real fight, it already feels different. Combat is the main focus here. You’ll be constantly throwing punches, countering, grabbing enemies, slamming them into the environment. Guns exist, but they feel secondary. Most of the time, you’ll only have hand to hand combat, but for good reason, you’re not the villain here, you’re just an undercover cop infiltrating Hong Kong’s Triad scene. It’s built around kung fu, and it fits the Hong Kong setting perfectly. You’ll have a tough time finding another GTA-style game where melee combat feels this central or this satisfying.
Saints Row The Third goes in the complete opposite direction. It’s still very much GTA at its core, a gang taking over a city, doing missions, causing chaos, but it leans hard into being ridiculous. Everything feels exaggerated on purpose. The humor is louder, you’ll be seeing characters straight up dressed for bondage, you can shoot a gun that makes sharks come from down below, and compete in a game show where you shoot down massive headed mascots. Even just driving around feels more like messing around than trying to play it straight, especially when it takes the cops 5 business days to actually realize you’ve committed a crime. Essentially what it feels like is playing GTA with a massive rubber dildo in your hand
So when it comes down to it, these 2 games actually have something going for them that give them their own identity rather than just another GTA-clone.
Why do these games fall short from GTA V? / Why They Still Fall Short
But you might be wondering, what makes these games fall just a tad short from competing with GTA V?
With Sleeping Dogs, the biggest one is customization. In Sleeping Dogs, you don’t really feel like you’re building your character over time. The focus is clearly on hand to hand combat, and that’s great, but everything around it feels limited. Guns are mostly temporary pickups instead of something you can actually manage through an inventory. I guess it does stop you from just going in guns blazing to every fight. It works for the combat style, but it also makes the game feel narrower than it needs to be. The skill system doesn’t help much either. You will basically just be filling out two linear trees, and once they’re done, that sense of growth kind of stops. It never really feels like your choices are shaping how you play.
Imagine having deep customization, multiple martial art weapons like nunchucks or having the ability to purchase apartments instead of being handed them from the main story. It just feels like a missed opportunity. All of these features are hinted in the game, but aren’t really implemented fully. Going as simple as having the option to change haircuts or facial hair would go a long way here, and it would still make sense cause you’re playing an established character in the story. Having an inventory for your weapons, or at least melee weapons, would have been nice too, since it’ll give you that sense of freedom to approach the fights the way you want. And oh… customizing vehicles, it’s a bit underwhelming that the only option to customize your car is by changing its paint job. So implementing ways to change parts, tuning up your vehicle, or maybe just change colors for different parts of the vehicle might just make Sleeping Dogs closer to GTA V.
On the other hand, Saints Row 3 doesn't have that customisation problem because the game lets you customize almost anything in the game,
But then Saints Row stumbles in the engagement part. In Saints Row 3, the main story throws a decent amount of cash at you early on. You buy properties, start earning hourly income, and that becomes the main loop. Do missions, earn money, buy properties, and increase income. Side activities give youcash and respect, which you use to unlock upgrades. It works at first, but once you hit that point where you’re earning enough hourly income to buy whatever you want, the motivation drops off. You stop caring about buying more properties, and outside of the main story, there isn’t much pulling you back into the world in a meaningful way.
It might be counterintuitive, and you can take this with a grain of salt, but maybe the game could have made the high-end objects more expensive or structured the game in a way that cash is harder earned, or at least balanced. So that cash is more impactful throughout the playthrough. Everything you buy should feel earned, even close to the end of the game. So it would feel like your choice to buy the high-end clothing would feel more impactful, rather than just buying the whole store out, which you can actually do in the game, quite early on, too. Or maybe make the massive passive income from properties only being achievable if you play certain missions or side activities. It’s things like these I think could have boosted engagement better towards the end.
Sleeping Dogs handles this much better. Almost every feature and mechanic is connected, so it drives you to keep playing
Which Game Does It Better?
That’s not it, though; there are still subtle differences in Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row 3 that are noticeable.
First thing we’ll talk about is exploring the map in both games, and while both games have a pretty seamless map, one tops the other in verticality. When it comes to verticality, Saints Row 3 clearly has the upper hand. Sleeping Dogs does let you climb and parkour across certain rooftops, and it’s cool when it shows up, but it’s pretty limited. Most of the time, I’m still engaging with the city at street level. Saints Row takes that and pushes it way further. You can fly the game’s version of a superjet called VTOL, helicopters, or even use flying bikes. You can approach the city from above whenever you want, and it completely changes how you move through the map. Exploring feels less constrained because you’re not tied to roads or rooftops.
But… atmosphere is where Sleeping Dogs pulls ahead. Each part of the city feels distinct. You can tell when you’re in the port area versus a high end district or a downtown area. The market areas especially stand out. It feels dense, loud, and busy in a way that fits the setting. NPCs actually sell that vibe too. Vendors shout, people hang around food stalls, and the city feels like it has a cultural identity baked into it. Saints Row’s city does the job, but it blends together more. There are differences, but they’re subtle, and NPCs mostly just pass by rather than reinforce the tone of the world.
As for what you can actually do in these worlds, this one’s harder to call. Saints Row leans fully into absurd side activities. Game shows, over the top challenges, insurance fraud missions where I’m just throwing myself into traffic and watching my character ragdoll around. It’s dumb, but it’s fun, and it fits the game’s personality. Sleeping Dogs takes a more grounded approach, but offers depth there. Dating characters can unlock new features, fight clubs let you focus purely on your combat skills, and even things like cockfighting tie back into money and progression. The activities might look simpler on the surface, but they’re connected to other systems in a way that gives them more weight.
Who Really Holds the GTA Like Crown?
When you put all of that together, if you want games closer to what GTA offers, both games can almost fully scratch that itch. They both nail the urban world setting, while letting you wreak havoc with your poor driving skills. Especially when driving in Sleeping Dogs feels loose with weak braking, and Saints Row The Third feels slippery and floaty, both issues stand out the more time I spend on the road. Saints Row The Third was never trying to be a serious crime game, though, and that’s both why it works and where it falls short. The goofy tone, exaggerated mechanics, and over the top humor are fun, but they make it hard to fully buy into the world as a realistic and grounded experience, especially when your character always feels overpowered and insulated from real consequences. Sleeping Dogs goes the opposite way, being closer to GTA in tonality. The undercover cop story adds weight to everything you do, with themes like loyalty and betrayal actually coming through in gameplay, bringing it all together with more melee-focused gameplay that makes you stop and think, “Wait, so I can’t just shoot my way through everything?” This is what makes it less of GTA. But also gives it a fresh martial arts driven identity within the genre.
So if we’re talking about which game holds the GTA like crown, it really depends on what you’re looking for. Play Saints Row The Third if you just want to have fun without any concern for realism, diving into the most absurd gameplay. Play Sleeping Dogs if you want to play around with satisfying martial arts moves, beating down triad crooks all around town. For me personally, though, I enjoyed both of them, but I’m more concerned about the nonexistent sequels in the current gen console (Saints Row reboot doesnt count, of course). Also, I’m curious which one takes the cake more for you guys. Let us know in the comments below.
