As with the person himself, the complete context of John Wick Hex is tough to discern. Bithell Games’ licenced collaboration with leisure powerhouse Lionsgate is an idiosyncratic interpretation of the all-action film sequence. Where lesser minds could have proffered a reskinned brawler, Hex swerves unapologetically near turn-based techniques territory – in truth, as game director Mike Bithell reveals, it began life as a single-character XCOM-like, “until we realised how boring XCOM with one character was”.
Will Keanu be a part of the game? Bithell can’t verify that but. What’s the setup? Well, it’s a prequel that takes place earlier than John meets ill-fated spouse Helen, however past that the story is fully below wraps. Why Hex? Well, right here’s one we can reply – form of. There’s deeper which means buried within the story that Bithell can’t but reveal, natch, however the title was initially essentially the most logical working title for a game that performs out on a hex grid. Hard, angular information be praised!
So, hex grids and considerate technique. It’s an odd alternative on paper, seeming unlikely to help the rough-edged, fraught, and instinctive fight that defines the flicks. But all of it is sensible when you expertise it in movement. The game pauses whilst you resolve the way to react to every scenario, however every thing performs out in actual time if you finish your planning section. Each motion out there to you prices time, and is added to a timeline on the high of the display screen which resembles the type of factor you may discover in video modifying software program.
You can see enemies’ timelines, too, permitting you to make educated choices on the way to reply. You could not have time to get into cowl earlier than an adversary opens fireplace, for instance, however you can interrupt the motion by tossing your empty gun at their head to stagger them, shopping for you a number of additional seconds to roll behind that desk and seize the discarded weapon subsequent to the goon whose neck you latterly snapped. It feels determined however managed, animalistic but cool-headed. Most importantly, you really feel like John Wick. It’s a disarmingly convincing illustration of the movies’ fight, and all of it flows superbly.
“When you move your eyes, your brain doesn’t see the movement,” Bithell enthuses once we ask him in regards to the design. “When you look from here to over there, your brain deletes all the information that happened in between, otherwise you’d get motion sickness. That’s how I think the stop-start nature of [Hex] works – because you’re thinking in those moments, between the action, your memory of playing the game doesn’t have those pauses in it because that’s just your consideration time.”
It’s definitely efficient, however that doesn’t diminish the truth that the techniques style, semi-real time or in any other case, isn’t precisely a mainstream proposition. Is there any concern in any respect, we marvel, whether or not sufficient John Wick followers will heat to the game?
It felt like a possibility to be cocky in that indie manner and make a superb licenced game
“For me, it felt like an attention-grabbing alternative to be slightly bit cocky in that indie manner, and go, ‘Well, what if we tried to make a good licenced game?’,” Bithell retorts. “That’s an attention-grabbing problem. The licenced games I completely love – the Batman Arkham sequence, Chronicles of Riddick, those that all the time get trotted out – are initiatives the place they took the factor they have been adapting very severely and constructed a game. Especially with Batman – that basically was constructed from the bottom up as ‘How do you turn Batman into a videogame protagonist?’, and that was the massive factor.
“No one on the Batman workforce sat down and went, ‘What can we adapt from games we like? What can we clone and then stick a batsuit on?’ That strategy stood out for me – I liked that game for that, as a result of it felt so contemporary. There have been a litany of concepts in there that weren’t in different games – it was simply fully its personal factor.”
According to Bithell, the Hex workforce went on an identical journey with its game, and has benefitted from a uniquely shut relationship with the movie’s manufacturing crew. “Even although we began with one thing that was a bit extra of a run-of-the-mill XCOM technique turn-based factor, it’s morphed as we’ve developed it as a result of the stunt workforce’s helped us work out a transfer, or [trilogy director] Chad Stahelski had a query about line of sight and wished us to tweak the way it works. We’ve created a game that we couldn’t have made with out John Wick.
We have entry to the John Wick workforce’s thought processes so we are able to construct on their intent reasonably than their output
“Because of the respect we now have for the franchise, and since we’ve taken it so severely, we now have the room to do extra issues. Because we’re not simply cloning the film, we’re speaking to the individuals who created the film – we now have entry to their thought processes, and so we are able to construct on their intent reasonably than their output in relation to the artwork model, the story, and so forth.”
The result’s a game that appears and feels acquainted in some ways – there’s a recognisable approximation of Keanu, we’ve all seen hex grids earlier than – however feels uncommon at each stage. This isn’t Bithell’s first licensed undertaking – he labored on quite a few such endeavours throughout his stint at Blitz Games – but it surely’s the primary one he’s had this stage of inventive management over. And although undoubtedly buoyed by the belief and enthusiasm Lionsgate has proven, he’s boldly sanguine in relation to the inherent danger of attempting one thing a bit totally different with a property folks already know and love.
“I think you’ve got to take the opportunity and make something cool,” he tells me, with out pausing to assemble his reply. “If you’re making a licensed game and never attempting to push the medium ahead, for my part you’re losing your time.“
It’s a worthy sentiment with which we couldn’t agree extra, and we’re eager to see what else John Wick Hex has in retailer.
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