Playground Games has revealed the full map for Forza Horizon 6, which encompasses Tokyo and the Japanese Alps.
Beyond the actual racing, one of the fundamental joys of Forza Horizon is exploring the vast recreations of real-world locations.
Past games have been set in Mexico, the UK, Australia, France, Italy, and the US, but the upcoming sixth instalment is heading to Asia for the first time, with the Japanese setting being highly requested by fans.
Developer Playground Games has now revealed the size of the map in Forza Horizon 6, and funnily enough it’s based on the same Kantō region which inspired Pokémon Red and Blue.
‘This is Horizon Japan!’ a tweet from the game’s official X account reads. ‘From the iconic downtown streets of Tokyo City all the way to the snowy Japanese Alps, Forza Horizon 6 introduces our most dense and vertical map yet.’
The map itself, if you compare it to the actual Kantō region in Japan, focuses on Tokyo and the Kanagawa prefecture. However, with the inclusion of the Japanese Alps at the top, it’s clear they’re taking some creative liberties in terms of 1:1 realism.
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Forza Horizon maps are fictionalised, truncated versions of a country, and for the sixth entry, the game’s art director, Don Arceta, has promised to showcase both the urban and rural parts of Japan.
This is Horizon Japan! From the iconic downtown streets of Tokyo City all the way to the snowy Japanese Alps, #ForzaHorizon6 introduces our most dense and vertical map yet.Which roads are you most excited to cruise and drift with your friends? pic.twitter.com/78GmkqzsWt
Speaking to Xbox Wire last year, Arceta said: ‘From the neon lights and towering buildings of Tokyo City – one of our most detailed and layered environments to date – to the serenity and natural beauty of Japan’s rural and mountain areas, we think players will be blown away by the open world of Japan that we have built.’
While Forza Horizon 6 is coming to PlayStation 5 following its launch on Xbox Series X/S and PC on May 19, 2026, there is no word yet on whether it’ll come to the Switch 2.
In the past, Microsoft has talked about its plans to support Nintendo’s console, but it hasn’t delivered much so far, outside of ports of South Of Midnight and next month’s Indiana Jones And The Great Circle.
Forza Horizon 6 might be technically too demanding for Nintendo’s hybrid, but not necessarily, as the console has been able to run the likes of Resident Evil Requiem and Star Wars Outlaws surprisingly well.
Also, it’d be a chance to actually have a Pokémon crossover – even if it’s just car livery – which Nintendo probably would agree to, as they already allow Zelda references in the Switch port of Skyrim.
While that’s not going to happen any time soon (even the PlayStation 5 version is coming out after the Xbox one) reliable leaker billbil-kun has revealed that Forza Horizon 6 will be getting a limited edition Xbox wireless controller and headset.
Both will be released at the same time as the game, on May 19, with the controller expected to cost $89.99 and the headset $134.99. No UK prices have been leaked but similar accessories were released for Starfield at launch, which cost £69.99 and £114.99, respectively.
Darwin’s Paradox – seagulls are a bigger danger than aliens (Konami)
In the tradition of indie classics such as Limbo and Inside, comes a new action adventure starring a cartoon octopus caught up in an alien invasion.
We don’t actually play that many video games that are truly awful, since there’s usually nothing of note about them to make a review worthwhile. There’re occasional exceptions, like the mind-bogglingly terrible Code Violet and the baffling MindsEye, but most of the worst games are just worthless slop of the sort Sony is currently trying to clear out from the PlayStation Store.
The majority of video games aren’t unusually good or bad, they’re somewhere in the middle. And so it can be difficult to know which are worthy of further investigation, given there are dozens of new indie games released every week, even at quiet times of the year.
We’re not familiar with French developer ZDT Studio, since this seems to be their debut game, but since the graphics for Darwin’s Paradox looked good, the publisher is Konami, and octopuses are cool we decided to give it a go. In the end we wish we hadn’t, not because it’s terrible but because it’s so deeply average.
Maybe average isn’t entirely fair. The graphics are really good for an indie game and on paper your octopus powers are all very neat, including the ability to camouflage yourself; shoot out ink to cover your escape; and walk along any surface, including the ceiling, like a spider (which we’re pretty sure octopuses can’t do, but whatever).
Darwin’s Paradox is, rather randomly, named after Charles Darwin’s discovery that tropical seas don’t seem to contain enough nutrients to sustain coral reefs, despite the fact they’re teeming with life. That has nothing to do with the game, other than the octopus you control is called Darwin, whose friend is captured by secret aliens running a food processing company and planning to invade Earth.
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What this translates to in gameplay terms is a 2D platformer influenced by the likes of Limbo and Inside, but swapping melancholic mystery for cartoon silliness. Darwin spends a surprising amount of time on dry land but whether he’s hiding from guards or trying not to get eaten by a moray eel everything works in the same general way.
His camouflage ability is basically a cloak of invisibility and as long as you activate it in time you become completely invisible to enemies. Although it does take a while to complete, so you spend a lot of time slowly inching your way across the screen, spending more time going into camouflage than moving or hiding.
Spraying ink is only good for masking your movement underwater but the gob of liquid you shoot out can be aimed quite precisely and so ends up getting used to activate switches and machinery when you’re on land. Although you don’t have any offensive abilities at all.
The game doesn’t press our buttons (Konami)
The climbing on any surface gimmick is used a surprising amount and while it seems quite clever at first it’s fiddly and inconsistent. Not enough to be a total wash but certainly enough to irritate, with sticky and slow movement that makes you constantly wish you could just get back in the water, where you’re much more mobile. The worst thing, though, is the game is filled with trial and error traps that often cannot be foreseen.
The checkpointing is generous enough that you don’t usually have to repeat too much but it’s still frustrating getting caught out by something you couldn’t have anticipated, especially as it happens so often. Even without this, the puzzles just aren’t interesting enough to engage you, as the solution is usually instantly obvious but pushing items where you want them or getting a pixel perfect jump just right is frequently more difficult than it should be.
As the scope of indie gaming begins to grow wider, from tiny games made by a single person to those whose scale begins to rival low-end games from traditional publishers, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to judge how fair their price tags are.
Darwin’s Paradox is relatively expensive and it’s only around six hours long and yet you can see where all the money went, as the cartoonish visuals are excellent and mixed in with almost photorealistic backdrops. That said, it’s never actually funny, no matter how often Darwin’s googly eyes try to emote as he’s being pecked to death by birds or squished by alien machinery.
Despite its attempts to provoke a reaction we found it impossible to hold any strong feelings about Darwin’s Paradox. It’s competently made, very pretty, and almost completely uninteresting. The dull and long-winded puzzles are the biggest problem and give the impression that the whole game was designed around the visuals, with everything seemingly having been worked back from there.
That’s never been a good way to make a video game and while this is an acceptable enough way to waste away a rainy Sunday afternoon, that’s about as positive as we can be about it.
Darwin’s Paradox review summary
In Short: A more family friendly attempt to mimic the likes of Limbo and Inside but while the graphics are impressive the gameplay feels stolid and poorly paced.
Pros: The visuals are fantastic, in terms of both the main characters and the backdrops. Interesting array of abilities, especially the wall-crawling and ink-spitting.
Cons: Everything in the game has been seen and done better before, with dull and long-winded puzzles and tedious stealth sections. The graphics are cute but there’s no real jokes and a weak ending.
Score: 5/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC Price: £19.99 Publisher: Konami Developer: ZDT Studio Release Date: 2nd April 2026 Age Rating: 7
Being published by Konami means free Metal Gear references (Konami)
Halo: Campaign Evolved – not necessarily the biggest Xbox release of the year (Xbox Game Studios)
The Friday letters page tries to guess what the Nintendo Switch 2 Lite will cost, as one reader is shocked by the behind the scenes info on The Last Of Us Online.
Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
First party trio I know that Xbox gets ragged on a lot everywhere nowadays, and I’m not going to pretend they don’t deserve most of it. However, it’s not all bad and, as someone that owns an Xbox Series X/S, I feel I have to try and look on the bright side.
This is easier than you might think because they have a really stacked first party line-up this year, including Forza Horizon 6, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and Fable. There might also be Gears Of War: E-Day, but I’m not clear if that’s meant for 2026 or not.
That is a much better line-up than either Sony or Nintendo at the moment, in my opinion, and while I agree it may get overtaken by the end those are not games to be ignored. I would assume Forza to be the biggest, but I think Fable has a chance to do very well too. I’m not so sure about Halo though, given we’ve already had one remake of it and there’s no multiplayer.
Crazy to think Halo has gone from Xbox’s most important franchise to a second-stringer. Nothing lasts forever, I guess. Korey
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GC: Gears Of War: E-Day has no release year, so it could conceivably be this year.
Lite on value With prices constantly going up it seems to be only a matter of time before the Switch 2 is even more expensive and I still haven’t got one. I have to assume this is encouraging Nintendo to fast-track the Switch 2 Lite, although who knows how quickly it will be to appear. But perhaps the biggest question now is how cheap could it be?
The normal Switch 2 is £400, or thereabouts, so surely the aim would be to get the Lite version to under £300. But even that seems a lot. That’s still only what the original Switch was at launch, so I’d appreciate at least another £50 off. Although in this case I do accept that there are outside factors.
Gaming is going too expensive in every aspect and I really think it’s about time console manufactures acknowledge this and make an effort to change things as a priority. I would look to Nintendo more than anyone to lead the way on this but so far there’s not really been anything. Ollienaut
Come back later I completed Life Is Strange: Reunion over the weekend and basically agree with your review. The whole thing is a rushed mess, with reused graphics, bad branching storytelling, and a terrible plot. Not only do I not think there’ll be another one after this, but I don’t want it after this; Max and Chloe deserved so much better.
Square Enix obviously knew all this would be disaster or they wouldn’t have held back the review copies, so why do it at all? Better to let the series rest for a few years, until people really start to miss it, and then do a new game, even if it ends the story, then with a team that wants it and hasn’t just been gutted by their corporate overlords. Grackle
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The budget of Zelda The idea of Nintendo becoming a big time film studio is so funny to me. The company with the least interest in telling a story is making the most successful movies… even if they don’t have stories either. The success of the second Mario film, which I haven’t seen, is only going to cement them further and other studios will be knocking down their door trying to get involved.
But like you said, that live action Zelda seems near impossible to get right. It could be done but I don’t have enough faith in the director or Nintendo as producer to make it work. I also can’t believe that Nintendo will pony up enough money to do the visuals justice.
An animated movie would’ve been such a better choice and a really good thing for more adult themed animation at the cinema. Or at least more adult than Mario. Zelda is the best video game franchise ever but what’s the betting it won’t be the best film ever? Or anything less than an embarrassment? Coolsbane
Virtual worlds within worlds Buying a game to pretend to own boxes of games you already have on digital is a hell of an elevator pitch. It’s always fascinating to me to read about these weird PC simulators, like truck sims and that powerhouse one.
I’d never want to play them but after thinking they’re a joke I always end up looking them up and it turns out they’ve sold 10 million or something. It’s easy to forget that non-gamers have very different interests and priorities to the rest of us. Snoopy PS: What is an elevator pitch anyway? Is that an American thing and they mean lift?
GC: We think they mean lift, yes.
Cyberdyne Systems That guy that was working on The Last Of Us Online for seven years only for it to cancelled must have a level of patience I can’t even begin to imagine. Apart from anything, I’m surprised he stayed in the games industry and didn’t go off and work for a saner kind of company afterwards.
Never mind the amount of hours everyone must’ve spent on the game, how much money did it cost to employ hundreds of people for seven years to make absolutely nothing? And the reason they cancelled it is because they didn’t want to spend the next 10 years making more content for it? Did they not know what a live service game was before they started?!
The more you learn about the games industry the more you begin to wonder whether anyone in it has any common sense. There are some creative geniuses making the games but everyone else around it seems to be running on only half a tank.
They keep trying to replace developers and artists with AI but how about swapping out some of these producers and exec types? As useless as AI is I don’t see how it could do any worse in most cases. Lynch
Resiopia PD I knew fans would get creative with Pokémon Pokopia and some of those examples were really great. I particularly appreciate whoever did the Resident Evil one because they edited the video for it so well too!
My dream is to recreate the towns as they were, but I don’t know if I’ll ever really get there. I still hold out enough hope that I don’t want to read that Reddit that tells you how to do it though. The fun of the game is working things out for yourself, and I appreciate that it doesn’t hold your hand as much as you’d think. Bosley
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Do a barrel roll Nice article on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. I agree that it’s definitely not a dumb Minions style movie that just wants you to ‘switch off your brain’ (ever notice that the people that say that are the least likely to ever watch something where you need to switch it on?).
It’s crazy and weird (I saw it yesterday with my kids) but it’s meant to be like that and, as you say, it’s closest thing you can get to a game without actually playing it. Is there a better movie that could be made with more character depth? Maybe but I don’t know who you’d get to write it.
As far as I’m concerned the only thing it could do with is more proper jokes in the dialogue, as it was kind of flat like that. But I enjoyed it. The only character that came anywhere close to being annoying was Yoshi and he was fine. I don’t anticipate getting to watch it 100 times when it hits streaming but the first time at least it was pretty fun.
I especially like the Star Fox bit, which I don’t see how any kid could properly understand, but Glen Powell was perfect and I now fully expect a new game to appear, because there’s no way they did all that just so people can play Lylat Wars on Nintendo Switch Online.
I do wonder what it’s going to be but perhaps something lower budget, that is just an on-rails shooter, and go back to basics like that? That’s not the normal approach Nintendo takes but then they don’t have many dead franchises like that, that they have to try a different trick with. Gordo
Inbox also-rans If it really is just a fiver I think I’d be a lot more interested in an Indie Game Pass than the Xbox one. I had it for a while and I barely played any of the first party games. Renton
I’m not sure I see the point in a PlayStation 6 portable. If you’re only going to use it in the house how would it be any different from using a PlayStation Portal? Wilks
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Life Is Strange: Reunion – Max and Chloe, together again (Square Enix)
After Square Enix prevented the game from being reviewed before launch, a passionate fan of Life Is Strange gives her opinion of what may be the last entry in the series.
It’s a strange cosmic space to occupy, being both a Pricefielder, who sacrificed Arcadia Bay in the first game to stay with Chloe and a gamer largely unsatisfied with the frictionless writing of Reunion, the game expected to be the death knell of the franchise for Square Enix and developer Deck Nine.
After the critical flop of Double Exposure, insider gossip suggests that Deck Nine shifted their plans for Reunion. So perhaps we will never truly know how much of Chloe’s return was planned and why Square Enix previously took such a hard line approach to shutting down fan criticism of her absence in Double Exposure.
What the rumours also suggest is that many of Deck Nine’s developers were laid off as the project wrapped up. The combination of a short development schedule (Double Exposure was only 2024), reduced staff, and a possible story pivot has led to a game that would have perhaps been better suited as an apology DLC, à la Mass Effect 3’s Citadel DLC.
The studio (and/or Square Enix) has made the decision that this curtain call should be a love letter to Max and Chloe – the heroines and potential lovers from the original game – while hoping that nostalgia will make up for the disappointments of Double Exposure. Chloe’s return is certainly a welcome change from the Avengers style team-up that the ending of Double Exposure seemed to be hinting at. Although retconning the ending of Double Exposure as Max’s ‘Storm Amnesia’ is a bad way of doing it.
If you’ve ever been in a lesbian situationship, you will be familiar with elongated conversations about each other’s feelings and extended, longing handholding. Rest assured, the title delivers firmly on this premise. There’re also some fun Easter eggs available via Max’s time-rewinding superpower, which makes for a fun touch of extra detail.
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The game shines when you get to play as Chloe, who is as outspoken as ever, but now with a decade of extra lived experiences, leading to some funny interactions with pre-established characters in the town of Lakeview.
However, Deck Nine’s attempt to fix the damage caused by Double Exposure unfortunately doesn’t change the fact that the game is still its sequel, so it continues to struggle with many of the same problems.
An average playthrough takes around nine hours and is missing the chapter structure Life is Strange fans will be accustomed to. The reduction in scope plays out across the limited mechanics, with very few proper quick time events, let alone any action sequences that aren’t pre-rendered cinematics. I established very early on that you could walk away from the controller without fear of messing up a quick time event or interrupting the flow of a scene.
Chloe’s much advertised backtalk feature, where she’s able to bamboozle antagonists and talk her way out of trouble, appears a mere three times and is a shadow of what could have been. It’s lovely to return to Max’s rewind powers, even if their use is a little limited in places, but it does lead to some narrative inconsistencies.
Locations in-game are incredibly limited and are mostly sections of locations already seen in Double Exposure. There’s a lot of those moments throughout the game, where we are given an off-screen hint at things that would have been really cool to see play out on a grander scale.
The game does shine when it is allowed to do things without reference to Double Exposure. The Abraxus house section is certainly the most well-designed section of the game, feeling like a return to form for the franchise. The game is at its darkest here, and the split perspective between Max and Chloe works well, despite the continued issue of a lack of player agency.
Reuniting Chloe and Max is the game’s saving grace. However, I can only wonder whether any of this was even necessary. In my playthrough of the original game I left Chloe and Max racing off into the sunset together – having to piece back together their lives in the fallout of Max’s decision, rightly or wrongly, to sacrifice the Bay.
Chloe doesn’t seem impressed (Square Enix)
Unfortunately, having also played the version where Chloe died in the school bathroom, I can say that the story here is weak – Max’s reactions are noticeably reduced to the bare minimum that can be reused across both timelines.
The game’s retconning of the core ideas and lessons of the original is its biggest crime. In Life is Strange, regardless of your final choice, we learn, alongside Max, that even superpowers cannot fix everything. Grappling with the topic of evil and moral choices is what made it so compelling, leading to the continued debate between Arcadia Bay-ers and Ba-ers over the last 10 years of fandom.
But now there is no debate, because Max can have her cake and eat it.
Reunion’s writing establishes a universe where anything is theoretically possible. Could Max simply jump into a childhood photo and save Rachel? The consequences of her time travel and the butterfly effect seems to have been solved and sidelined in Reunion. The way to prevent the collapse of the space/time continuum is to merely think it away.
The merging of timelines creates a paradox, so that Chloe and Safi both simultaneously exist and don’t exist. It’s established that merely thinking about this causes the two to be transported into the Overlight – a dream place where they blink out of existence for a few seconds. The fact that this is solved by the power of ‘not thinking about it’ may feel a little unsatisfying.
Meanwhile, Safi is reduced to a strange pantomime villain role, no longer on her mission to find other people with superpowers, but popping up periodically to confuse Max. Her pressing concern is that she believes herself to be half-dead, revelling in the nihilism of her semi-existence and attempting to bring down Chloe with her. Unfortunately, I found myself agreeing with her at many points in the game.
I’m not sure if it was a deliberate message by an upset developer, or divine intervention, but Safi is the character that sums it all up, late on in the game, lamenting that ‘All of us have the seeds of our deaths planted inside of us. But I’m trying not to focus on mine while I still have a life left to live.’
Unfortunately for the Life Is Strange franchise, the seeds of its death were sown long, before this final entry, and this attempted quick fix, to get things back on track, isn’t nearly good enough to achieve that goal.
Whilst ultimately an underdeveloped entry, it does make for a loving send off for Max Caulfield. Unfortunately, being another weak entry, it may also play that role for the franchise itself.
Score: 5/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC Price: £44.99 Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Deck Nine Release Date: 26th March 2026 Age Rating: 16
A new indie puzzle game from the creator of ElecHead is one of the best releases of the year – and also one of the cheapest.
We are glad that Nintendo tries to highlight new indie titles, in their semi-regular Indie World showcases, but their irregular schedule and short running time means they can only cover a tiny fraction of all the games that are released. Add in the strange obsession with shadow drops – which means there’s often no way to review many of the titles until long after they’re out – and we’re not sure how much many of the games really gain from the exposure.
Öoo wasn’t in the most recent Indie World for the UK and we had no idea it even existed until a reader pointed out it has been in the Japanese version of the showcase. Given it has only two reviews on Metacritic, we’re clearly not the only ones. Why it wasn’t featured in the Western version we don’t know, but it’s unclear whether the companies have to pay to be included in the shows.
The game is primarily the work of just a single person, with Japanese indie creator Nama Takahashi having previously made 2021’s ElecHead. That’s also a game that escaped our attention the first time round, but now that we’ve become aware of Öoo we can confidently say it’s one of the best games of 2026.
We’re not sure how you’re meant to pronounce the game’s name, which is actually a pictograph of the caterpillar creature you play as, with the umlaut taking the role of his little antenna. That’s all very clever but as we’ve said many times before, indie games where there’s any confusion over how you say or spell their name are not a good idea and it’s infuriating how many times developers keep doing it.
To add insult to injury there is already a game called oOo: Ascension, which came out in 2018 and is also on the eShop. We’ve no idea what it is, but it doesn’t seem to involve exploding caterpillars.
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There is no real story to explain what’s going on but the idea is that each segment of the caterpillar is made out of a bomb, which can ejected and exploded at will – assuming you’re on the ground at the time. If you’re within the blast radius you won’t be killed but will instead be launched forward, essentially allowing you to jump; what direction you move in depends on what side of the bomb you were sitting on when it went off.
At first you can only use one bomb at a time, but when you gain the ability to use two at once the puzzles get exponentially more complicated and interesting. Bombs can, in classic Zelda style, also be used to destroy walls and set off switches, and so you learn to not only launch yourself but also the other bomb, in order to get it where it needs to be.
That makes Öoo sound like a Metroidvania, especially as you’re stuck in a maze-like 2D world where some areas seem completely inaccessible at first. But while there are some small similarities with things like Animal Well the second bomb is the only extra one you get and all the new abilities you learn are really just tricks and exploits of the game’s in-built mechanics, that it’s entirely up to you to work out.
Checkpoints are everywhere (AMATA Games)
It may look like an old ZX Spectrum game, but Öoo is an incredibly clever sandbox puzzle game. It’s not a direct comparison but it reminded us very much of the superb Baba Is You, in the that the game sets up the rules for you at the start and you have to work out how to interpret and stretch them into solving the puzzles. Nothing is scripted and everything feels organic, as you slowly realise the logical extent of you powers and how they can be used to your advantage.
The game doesn’t just drop you off in the deep end though, as there’s a lot of what is the puzzle game equivalent of signposting, as new techniques are hinted at and then you ended up being teleported back to an earlier location, where you realise you can actually progress through it after all.
Unlike the cold and unforgiving The Witness, Öoo seems to actively want you to succeed and to not get frustrated. There are plenty of checkpoints, no penalties for dying, and while the game’s certainly not linear it won’t have you exploring aimlessly for too long; especially as areas are blocked off by frogs that require you to feed them flies before they’ll let you pass.
As with all good puzzle games, the obstacles seem absolutely impossible right up until the moment you work out what you’ve got to do, and you kick yourself for not realising how easy it was after all. Some obstacles require careful timing, which can be a little frustrating, but it’s a rare problem and for the majority of the time it’s brainpower and not fast reflexes that are most important.
Sandbox gaming might be more commonly associated with giant open world games but the much more modest confines of Öoo are infinitely more engaging and versatile than most titles a thousand times its budget. Your progress is impeded only by your own imagination, and the game is a master at stimulating it and making you feel like a genius for every problem you solve.
Öoo review summary
In Short: One of the best puzzle games of recent years is also one of the most empowering and cleverly designed, as its stretches seemingly simple mechanics to impressive lengths.
Pros: Wonderfully minimalist controls that hide a multitude of unique puzzles. Equally clever signposting that makes it difficult to get stuck for long. Charming visuals and very cheap.
Cons: Getting the timing right on some puzzles can occasionally be frustrating. Technically you could beat it in just a few hours, if you’re some kind of puzzling genius.
Score: 9/10
Formats: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC Price: £8.50 Publisher: AMATA Games Developer: Nama Takahashi Release Date: 3rd March 2026 Age Rating: 7
Saber Interactive has unveiled a new big budget John Wick game and it’s not just for PS5 – even if it doesn’t have a release date yet.
Technically this new John Wick game wasn’t a surprise. The head of film studio Lionsgate said last month that a ‘major’ new John Wick game would be announced and he wasn’t lying, as anyone that watched last night’s State of Play will know.
The new game, which doesn’t yet have a name, is a multiformat title, and will be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC at an unspecified point in the future – but seemingly not this year.
Most of the reveal trailer seems to be pre-rendered, but there’s what appears to be actual gameplay towards the end, and it looks very good.
The authenticity of the action is no doubt due to the involvement of series creator Chad Stahelski, with the game featuring an original story set before the Impossible Task. In other words, it’s a prequel that takes place before the events of the four films.
Whatever the game ends up being called, it will be developed by Saber Interactive, who have a number of very different studios – and it’s not clear which one is making this. But the publisher’s biggest hits include World War Z and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, so they’re used to working with other people’s IP.
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According to the trailer blurb the game will feature, ‘a hard-hitting gun-fu combat system, jaw-dropping camerawork, intense driving experiences, cinematic storytelling, and a bold range of atmospherically immersive environments.’
As you can see, the game does feature the likeness of Keanu Reeves but whether he’ll be providing the voiceover is unclear. There’s a good chance he will though, as he’s no stranger to the world of video games, given his sterling work on Cyberpunk 2077.
This will not be the first John Wick game but unfortunately the excellent strategy action game John Wick Hex was delisted last year and is now all but impossible to acquire.
It’s a shame, because while it’s one of the ugliest games we’ve ever played – and does not feature Keanu’s likeness – it is one of the most original turn-based strategy titles of recent years.
Turn-base strategy is not the obvious way to go for a property like John Wick though and it’s only a surprise it’s taken this long for a big budget triple-A game to be announced.
