John Wick's Prequel Game Is Filling In A Crucial Timeline Gap

Over the last decade, perhaps no American action franchise has been as beloved, influential, and well-received as the John Wick franchise. The series, which stars Keanu Reeves as a retired assassin brought back into the fray by the poor decision-making of a group of Soviet gangsters, has already been successful enough to warrant four films in the mainline series and a separate spin-off, Ballerina, with a fifth entry in development and coming soon. The sprawling world of competitive assassins and secret societies has grown much bigger than it was when a group of unlucky criminals executed the worst call on Earth and murdered a dog, and now it’s about to get even bigger in a few months.

There’s a new John Wick video game coming to fans from the developers at Saber Interactive, a third-person shooter/action title that aims to immerse players in the shoes of the deadliest assassin to ever work for the High Table. While details are scarce at the moment, a recent interview with Saber’s Chief Creative Officer might shed a few details on how the game will help sketch out some of the mysterious details behind Wick’s early days as an elite assassin.

Tim Willits, the CCO over at Saber, recently talked with IGN about the game and the creative ethos behind approaching such a beloved property. Not only did Willits speak to the nature of the films and how they already have elements that feel a bit like a video game — like the waves of grunts and henchmen Wick faces in every film before facing off against the boss-like rivals he ends up against in every installment — but he also let it slip that the game takes place before the events of the first movie, pointing to the fact that in the trailer John is actually getting fitted for the first of many iconic bulletproof suits he wears in the films.

One of the massive questions fans have after John Wick: Chapter 4, which served as a climax of sorts to the current arc of the films, is just how we’re supposed to get a sequel after the character apparently perished in the last film. Although we won’t discover the answer to that until after the fifth film releases, the upcoming game has the benefit of side-stepping that question entirely by focusing on one of the many contracts Wick had to have filled before his debut on-screen – because his legend is so storied and so many minor characters have heard tales of his exploits, Saber Interactive truly has free reign to write the character’s “origin” from the ground up, much like IO Interactive is doing with their upcoming James Bond game; 007 First Light.

Another benefit of where the game lies in the timeline is there’s the potential for it to shed a light on some of the many fabled “impossible” tasks that have been teased in John Wick’s past over the course of the previous films. From the legendary and unnamed job that granted John his freedom upon completion (described by Viggo Tarasov in his myth-making monologue in the original) to the mysterious circumstances that saw John slay three men in a bar with nothing more than a pencil, so much of the air of dangerousness and mystique that the character thrives on comes from this patchwork of stories told by both enemies and allies alike across the span of four movies – wouldn’t it be satisfying as a fan of the series to get to fill John’s shoes and live out one of the many incomprehensible feats he’s accomplished in his time as the Baba Yaga?

Although there is no official release date yet, fans hopefully won’t have to wait too long to become the Boogeyman and discover when exactly in the timeline this upcoming game takes place.

The original John Wick streams on HBO Max.