In February, Saber Interactive announced a John Wick game with four words on a black screen. Before the car. Before the dog.
I have watched this teaser more times than a 2.01-second video deserves
Well, six words if you count the third line, which is Before he became the Baba Yaga, and which I did not remember correctly until I went back and checked just now. I had it as “before he was.” It is “before he became.” That bothers me more than it should.
That was 12 February. It is September. The game still has no title.
I check every few weeks. There is no name, no date, no year, and the wishlist page still just says Untitled John Wick Game, which after seven months has started to feel less like a placeholder and more like a decision.
But you might be saying, plenty of games go quiet after a reveal and come out fine. To which I say yes, absolutely, and I am not claiming otherwise. I just remember the coverage in February reading like this thing was nearly here, and it very much is not.
Here is what they actually told us. Single player. Third person. PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. Keanu Reeves doing the face and the voice, Chad Stahelski involved in production, and a director called Jesus Iglesias running the game itself. The story is original and set years before the Impossible Task, which is the job that finally bought Wick out.
Reeves has been in a John Wick game before and he was Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2077, so this is not new to him. It is the first time he has properly played Wick in one, though.
Screenshot I took of the wishlist page in July. Still says Untitled. I checked again this morning.
The thing that convinced me was not the trailer.
Saber made Space Marine 2. Seven million copies in its first year, two Game Awards nominations, and more importantly it is heavy. Everything in that game has weight. When you hit something you feel the hit and the animation takes its time about it, and John Wick is choreography before it is anything else. That is the right instinct to be starting from. Whether it translates into gun-fu is another question and I have no idea.
What we still do not know is most of it. No title, no date, no window. No real gameplay, because the teaser was cinematic and Saber only said some gameplay was mixed in. Nothing at all about how combat works, and combat is the entire game.
And nothing new on the Knights of the Old Republic remake, which people brought up within about ten minutes of the announcement and which has gone quiet again since.
I do not think that is sinister. Saber runs as a group of studios and puts out several games a year, so both things can be alive at the same time. Still. One of them has been in the dark for years and the other just walked off with all the attention.
Meanwhile the films are not slowing down at all. Chapter 5 is in development, there is a Caine film with Donnie Yen, and there is another one following the events of Chapter 4. So Saber gets to work without a film release breathing down its neck, which is the better way round, even if it means waiting.
A teaser and a wishlist page is not a release plan. Anyone hoping to play this in 2027 should probably let that go now.
What I keep coming back to is that tagline. Before the car, before the dog, before he became the Baba Yaga. Making an origin story land for a man whose entire appeal is that he already knows how to kill everyone in the room is properly difficult, and most attempts at that sort of thing are bad. I would still like to watch someone try.
