Earlier in 2026, we acquired our first take a look at Saber Interactive’s at the moment Untitled John Wick Game at a Sony State of Play. However other than an impressively cinematic trailer, little or no is thought about the upcoming venture. Nicely, IGN not too long ago spoke with Saber’s Chief Artistic Officer, Tim Willits, and squeezed a few further tiny particulars out.
A John Wick recreation looks as if a no-brainer. In principle, it is gun-fu motion, which isn’t overly dissimilar from Treatment’s Max Payne bullet-time fight or Sifu’s hand-to-hand melee combos — the former has already obtained a film adaptation, with the latter in manufacturing at Netflix from, by the way, John Wick’s Chad Stahelski. So, the Keanu Reeves-led film sequence making its approach into video video games appears a pure reversal of the adaptation course of.
It’s a sentiment shared by Willits. “The wonderful thing about the Wick sequence is while you watch the motion pictures, they’re sort of like video video games. You have a group of enemies, then you have got some powerful guys, and you’ve got a boss struggle, after which you have got a group of enemies, powerful guys, and a boss struggle. So it is actually thrilling to convey that motion to a online game. It will be like watching a film. That is all I can say.”
Whereas the construction of the recreation stays unknown, we are able to infer that it will maybe be a level-based motion recreation in the mould of classics like the aforementioned Max Payne, if the stream of grunts, brutes, and executives that Willits talked about is as instructed. What we do know, nevertheless, is when the recreation might be set, and, in flip, how its place on the John Wick timeline might impression its type of gameplay.
“So sure, it is earlier than film one,” Willits confirms. “And you may sort of infer that as a result of [in the reveal trailer] he is getting measured for his go well with, and he seems to be a little bit youthful.”
As a result of this John Wick is a prequel, Saber’s intention is for fights to be a little bit extra clumsy than what followers have seen on the massive display screen, and the fight is extra instinctual. This might, in principle, give the recreation a good sense of development, as we presumably achieve expertise and unlock abilities on our approach to turning into the much-feared Baba Yaga determine inhabited by Keanu Reeves’ murderer in the first film. It additionally, crucially, means he isn’t fuelled by the homicide of his beloved canine, so, fortunately, we received’t must undergo that trauma yet again.
We’ll be taught a lot extra about the Untitled John Wick recreation as we creep nearer to its launch, however Willits may be very enthusiastic about getting it in gamers’ fingers, claiming it is “Saber’s largest announcement we have ever completed.”
For a developer now extremely adept in adapting present IP into video games, that’s no small declare, with the extremely profitable Warhammer 40,000: Area Marine 2 and Evil Useless: The Game beneath the studio’s belt, in addition to the upcoming John Carpenter’s Poisonous Commando, Jurassic Park: Survival, and Hellraiser: Revival.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can primarily be discovered skulking round open world video games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Observe him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.