During the PlayStation State of Play event on Thursday, viewers learned it was finally happening: the John Wick franchise was getting its first major video game. After Bithell Games’ tactical (and now delisted) John Wick Hex and John Wick Chronicles for VR, it’s time for Keanu Reeves’ action franchise to enter the triple-A world courtesy of Space Marine 2 developer Saber Interactive.
Lionsgate owns the Wick franchise, and it’s said in the past it wanted to make such a game for everyone’s favorite suit-wearing killer. (Well, everyone’s other favorite suit-wearing killer.) Whether you think it’s about time or maybe a bit late in the franchise’s life, Saber’s take is coming at a broadly good moment where more IPs are making the jump to games as their own substantial offerings instead of just being additive to Fortnite. And whenever this game comes, it’ll arrive with what’s quietly become the series’ baggage of already having one foot in video games before the medium was ever part of its equation.
From John Wick 2 up to 2025’s Ballerina, these films have incorporate games in various ways, whether it’s Wick 2’s “Here’s a scenario, here’s a miniboss” structure or Wick 4 and Ballerina having power weapons like flamethrowers and supporting characters with proficiencies that wouldn’t go amiss in a hero shooter. (Shamier Anderson’s Tracker is the most blatant example of this, since he often deploys his dog like it’s his Special.) In the same way you can see how Indiana Jones & the Great Circle could only have come in the shadow of Uncharted and Tomb Raider, it makes sense the Wick films go from evoking gaminess to wanting to stand alongside some of the biggest, most prestigious games around.
Saber’s John Wick game exists as an interesting contrast to Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, another big reveal at the event. Along with celebrating the franchise’s 40th anniversary this year, it’s also the first fully new entry in the series in over a decade after 2014’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 and the first game to arrive in the wake of the franchise’s pivot to animation. When Konami revealed in 2022 it was looking to revive its older franchises with remakes and new installments, fans hoped Castlevania wouldn’t be far behind Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid. In fact, one could argue it should’ve been first on the agenda given Powerhouse’s two Netflix series helped keep the franchise in people’s minds.
When Belmont’s Curse releases later this year, it’ll provide another window into how game adaptations affect their source material. Series like Arcane and Fallout have been successful in getting players to check out or rejoin prior games in a franchise, but how does this phenomenon look when it comes to a wholly new game? For every handful of stories where game sales and player numbers have spiked after an adaptation, there’s also been instances where nothing much happened at all. Prime Video’s Secret Level adapted several games in 2024, and it didn’t seem to much of a tangible impact, good or bad, on the franchises it tackled: Bandai Namco was already going to make its dark Pac-Man game; Amazon was probably already considering pulling the plug on New World by then; and The Outer Worlds 2 came out with such bigger controversies surrounding it that its own episode probably isn’t remembered.
John Wick and Castlevania are entering new territory with these games; Wick has to show its world is as fun to play as it is to watch, and Castlevania must prove it’s still got the juice and can stand next to those who’ve adopted its tricks in the years since its hiatus. There’s a certain amount of pressure on them, given the state of the industry, but they both have some cushion—namely, that Konami’s already confirmed it has multiple Castlevania products beyond Belmont’s Curse and there are more Wick movies in the near future. The fate of these IPs doesn’t rest entirely on these two games’ shoulders, but it’d clearly be nice if they were good and sold well in a day and age where it’s more vital than ever for that to be the case.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Read the full article here
