John Wick AAA Game Trailer Unleashes High-Octane Action With Keanu Reeves
The game is in development by Saber Interactive, a seasoned and versatile studio that's released a wide variety of games since its founding in 2001. While it's not as much of an obvious match made in heaven as, say, 007 First Light being in development by Hitman series developers IO Interactive, the sheer pedigree of Saber Interactive is still remarkable. Saber Interactive's greatest claims to fame in recent years include the stellar optimization for The Witcher 3 and other heavy-duty ports on Nintendo Switch, as well as World War Z, the Insurgency series, and Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2. With Saber also tasked to handle Turok: Origins, Jurassic Park: Survival, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, and John Carpenter's Toxic Commando, we're looking at a very busy studio with consistently-praised, quality output.
It's an exciting time to be a John Wick fan, to be sure. While the trailer sadly doesn't show much beyond what the in-engine graphics will look like, Saber is a far cry from the average movie-game shovelware developers of the 2000s. Interestingly, I actually viewed a 30-minute video essay by prominent games critic Raycevick a few weeks ago, describing "The John Wick Game Problem," how small-scale existing John Wick game adaptations are, how well a few unlicensed indie games are doing at capturing the experience, and the potential of a real AAA John Wick game.
Lo and behold, Raycevick got exactly what he was asking for at State of Play, and Saber Interactive even commented on the video with, "This one is for you, sir," implying the studio has at least viewed the essay and considered its points. It's highly recommended watching if you're invested in John Wick or high-spec tactical shooting games in general, and should give you an idea of both what to look forward to and what's already available to play today. There's also the AI-powered John Wick pinball machine, if you're into that.
It's an unprecedented time for cinemaphiles who double as true gaming enthusiasts. With 007: First Light and now this John Wick game in development, as well as modern AAA graphics backing developers like Sony Santa Monica, Insomniac Games, and Hideo Kojima, we've entered an era where high-quality "movie games" can actually exist. While the John Wick AAA game is a prequel that won't be an obvious tie-in to any of its series' films, the game is being developed in partnership with both the franchise director Chad Stahelski and actor Keanu Reeves, showing a level of collaboration between games and film that would have been unimaginable in the 2000s.
