In a recent press release, IllFonic CEO and co-founder Charles Brungardt said, “When we first started talking to Good Shepherd Entertainment and Teravision Games about this possibility, we were very excited about the IP. Then we got to know the team at Teravision and knew we were going to make this happen. Everyone at Good Shepherd has made the handoff process of this project enjoyable, as there is a lot of behind-the-scenes business to make something like this possible.

“And we are thrilled to help create another experience for the community they can truly immerse themselves in. Imagining yourself in this universe is wild. It is why we love creating and publishing games for IPs we are fans of!”

Enrique Fuentes, Teravision Games CEO and co-founder, also said, “We are excited about partnering with IllFonic for Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game. They have more experience than anyone in the industry in the asymmetrical multiplayer genre. The combined passions of Teravision Games and IllFonic will allow us to take the game to the next level and make us feel confident about the challenges of multiplayer at this scale.”

A release date wasn’t announced, but it is coming to Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5 and PC. It’s based on the 80s horror film of the same name, with a team of three Killer Klowns hunting down seven humans in Crescent Cove. The Klowns have unique abilities, while the humans can utilize different weapons.

Interestingly, Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game was announced at last year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live. Perhaps a new trailer and release date will be revealed at today’s showcase, which airs at 11 AM PT. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

The trailer talks about the work that went into trying to recreate the atmosphere from the cult classic movie and translate it into Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game.

Announced earlier this year during Gamescom, Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game is an asymmetric multiplayer game where players can play either as the titular Killer Klowns that want to harvest humans, or the humans who are trying to fight off the Klowns.

While Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game doesn’t yet have a solid release date, we do know that it is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC some time in early 2023.

The trailer, poking fun at various classic horror franchises, shows off a little bit of what looks to be multiplayer gameplay. It is worth noting that the gameplay shown off is pre-alpha footage.

Killer Clowns from Outer Space: The Game will allow players to play as either the Killer Klowns, planning and executing on their own alien invasion to harvest humans, or as humans who are trying to fight off the Killer Klowns.

While it doesn’t yet have a solid release date, Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game is coming to PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One in early 2023. The game also has a beta that players can sign up for on the official website.

For those unfamiliar with more strategic turn-based games like this, Hard West 2 is a welcoming on-ramp. The initial cast of characters are similar enough to feel like you can learn them all at once, but different enough to pick up on where their individual strengths lie. Same deal with the enemies. The first few battles will play out similarly, only introducing more elements like elevation, different types of cover, and new weapons very incrementally – giving you plenty of time to get used to managing each characters’ action points and building up bravado as you clear different areas of enemies.

"In most ways, the sequel resembles its predecessor with grimey characters, a relatively simplified series of gameplay systems, and a strictly similar setting and tone. Hard West 2 does show signs of evolution though, with a bigger game, better challenge, and a bit more depth."

You’ll also get a smooth introduction to the game’s secondary mode; the overworld. Here your party travels around on horseback from town to town, finding shops, new characters, resources, and side quests along the way. Most of the side quests end up being simple tasks like following a trail that leads to an optional battle or finding certain items that another character needs and getting rewarded for it, but they work as satisfying diversions despite their simplicity. They also help flesh out the gritty western story and give you more opportunities to earn loyalty from party members. While overworld sections in many similar games can easily wind up feeling like boring filler, Hard West 2 uses them to great effect.

The only gripe I have while playing through the overworld sections is that most of the dialogue is still unvoiced. The game focuses on several characters, but the main story is centered around Gin Carter, an outlaw and soon to be rich man – and it all works well enough without being a revolutionary tale in any way. Unlike a lot of games in this genre, the most important story moments are acted with above average voice acting thankfully, and those moments are well written which also helps sell the story and their personalities. That said, there is still a lot of reading, with most of the connective tissue between fully voiced moments playing out more like a game of dungeons and dragons than an actual video game, it can be a bit of a drag on the momentum of the experience at large. It’s a small gripe, I would argue, though.

The main treat is unmistakably the actual battles though. Thanks to the near-perfect pacing of progression for the level sizes, introduction of new enemy types, and general difficulty you never feel like you’re overwhelming the opposition and likewise are never totally at a loss of what to do either. A successful bullet ricochet off a barrel that kills an enemy and refills your action points is an exhilarating boost of dopamine that, if planned out correctly, can lead to a nice chain of one or two members of your party taking out a whole squad of enemies with style and ease.

"The main treat is unmistakably the actual battles."

These moments become fewer and farther between as more evasive and challenging enemies emerge of course, but that makes achieving them all the more satisfying. After you get your sea legs, and enemies are debuffing you with magical attacks from across the map and you’re recalibrating your strategy to deal with the steadily increasing range of enemy types, the variety and depth of Hard West 2 becomes unmissable. Changing out different trinkets, weapons, and buffs for each character which come in the form of cards is a fun exercise in maximizing each party members’ talents and your interest in exploring those aspects grows as your options do.

As the enemy types and abilities at your disposal grow, so does the notion that this is not your typical western setting. Sure, the characters you see are largely based on archetypal western personalities with gunslingers past their prime, but as these characters interact with each other as well as the strangers you come across throughout your journey, they do open up into more complex characters than I was expecting. The same can’t really be said for certain NPCs that are interacted with multiple times though as shopkeepers and loners that come and go don’t ever have much to say outside of setting you up for the next chapter of the journey. They serve those purposes just fine though.

The art style might seem a bit at odds with Hard West 2’s gritty story at first, but once it really gets going, that feeling goes away. More major cutscenes use cool 3D comic book renderings that play with layering nicely at different speeds to show their depth, and end up holding your attention well. In-game the story is delivered much more casually with occasional voice overs and the aforementioned text boxes that aren’t really hindered or advanced by the artstyle. Gameplay looks good though, and with this particular look it should be pleasing to most eyes. What the environments and characters lack in detail they mostly make up for in style, which is arguably more important anyway.

"What the environments and characters lack in detail they mostly make up for in style, which is arguably more important anyway."

There’s no denying that Hard West 2 hasn’t shaken its scrappy indie style. This is to the game’s benefit for the most part, as the unbridled creativity of the game’s writing and gameplay elements continue to flourish even more than they did in the original game. The price Hard West 2 pays for the freedom to be its own game is small compared to the rewards that are reaped from that trade. With a unique spin on its genre as well as its setting, combined with a great balance of being approachable and rewarding, Hard West 2 is a stand-out in its genre.

From small things like great sound effects and voice acting, to more fundamental victories like its mix of overworld exploration and solid strategy-style combat sections, there’s a lot to love here. Hardcore veterans are better taken care of with new layers of strategy and variety, while newcomers are still treated to a markedly more attainable experience than most of its counterparts in the genre provide. No attempt at that balancing act will ever be perfect, but Hard West 2 shows just how close you can get. With some inconsistent production values aside, Hard West 2 is a joy to play. If you’re a long-time fan of the genre or just passingly interested, this is one you’re going to want to take a chance on.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Hard West 2 revolves around the exploits of con man Gin Carter and his band of thieves as they raid a legendary “ghost train” in search of gold. Things quickly get out of hand, however, as the team now finds themselves in a land claimed by darkness.

A notable mechanic in Hard West 2‘s tactical gameplay is the Bravado system—getting a kill on any character fills them with Bravado, instantly letting them continue their turn with all of their action points restored.

Carter’s posse also has unique abilities of their own, with more abilities unlocked as they level up and become more trusting of Carter. Abilities like swapping places with an enemy to gain a vantage point can be used alongside sticks of dynamite for the game’s various combat scenarios.

Hard West 2 is a take on the weird west genre; its western setting is beset by supernatural horrors on all sides, and even the protagonists’ special abilities have some dark origins behind them.

I thought about this scene a lot as I played through John Wick Hex, the first licensed game in the series, because it exemplifies a lot of what John Wick Hex is. Hex probably isn’t what you’d expect from a John Wick game. Rather than being a traditional action game, this is a tactical title. You control John from above, guiding him through a series of grid-based levels. The objective of each level is simple: get to the exit, or kill a specific target, which appears as a unique boss enemy.

"The story is told through voice overs during missions and comic book style cutscenes, as Hex relates Wick’s progress to his prisoners. The writing is surprisingly good, as is the voice acting."

The setup goes like this: several years before John meets his wife and tries to get out of the murder-for-hire business, a gangster named Hex has kidnapped Winston and Chabon – John’s old friends from the Continental Hotel – as an act of revenge against the High Table, the ruling authority in the John Wick underworld. He believes this show of strength will win him power, and possibly a seat at the Table itself. The High Table, however, is having none of it, and dispatches Wick to find Hex, dismantle his criminal network, and take him down.

The story is told through voice overs during missions and comic book style cutscenes, as Hex relates Wick’s progress to his prisoners. The writing is surprisingly good, as is the voice acting. Both Ian McShane (Winston) and Lance Reddick (Chabon) return to voice their characters, while Troy Baker admirably handles Hex. Keanu Reeves isn’t present, however, leaving John silent, but since the narrative conceit is that Hex is telling the story, it works pretty well. Overall, it’s a pretty good plot, and listening to the characters banter is enjoyable.

The game’s visual and sound design deserve praise as well. The flat, stylized look of a comic book is a perfect fit for a game like this. John’s face is set in a perpetual scowl, and the enemy types are easily identifiable. The variety in locations helps out a lot, too. John’s journey takes him from dimly lit back alleys to thumping, neon nightclubs, with a few stops at seedy docks, minimalist art galleries, and even snowy mountains along the way. Austin Wintory provides a strong score that sets the tone for each area, and the different locations help everything feel unique, even though the areas largely play the same.

"Actions take a certain amount of time, which is tracked on a timeline at the top of a screen. Every time you finish an action or spot a new enemy, time stops, allowing you to consider your next move."

What will hook you is the gameplay. The game is tactical, but it isn’t turn-based. Instead, actions take a certain amount of time, which is tracked on a timeline at the top of a screen. Every time you finish an action or spot a new enemy, time stops, allowing you to consider your next move. Most moves take a fraction of a second, but planning can take significantly longer. The timeline shows how long the actions you can take compare to what each visible enemy is doing. Picking the right action is crucial. Take too long, and an enemy will be able to interrupt whatever you were trying to do, opening you up to even more damage.

Making the right decision comes down to learning your options. A parry, for instance, is very quick, and will usually beat most enemy strikes, but you have to be next to the enemy in question. Strikes do damage, but they take longer. Crouching can make an enemy miss a shot but limits your movement. Sometimes it’s best to just hide behind cover. You can also push enemies away from you, or perform a takedown which kills most enemies instantly and allows you to change position. Sometimes, though, the smartest thing to do is find a good spot and wait, allowing you to take out an unsuspecting enemy before they even know you’re there.

Your guns come into play, too. There’s a good variety, including semi-automatic pistols, revolvers, SMGs, shotguns, and assault rifles, though some are all but useless. Revolvers and shotguns take a long time to fire, leaving you open to getting hit even if you tell John to fire before the enemy does. Others, like the SMG, fire quickly and do a lot of damage, but fire several times, which often means you’ll be wasting ammo firing at an enemy that’s already dead. I found the standard semi-automatic pistols best for almost every situation, but stronger guns are undeniably useful against tougher targets. Managing your ammo is key because spare clips are scarce, so you’ll be picking up the guns of the dead as you progress. You always have the option to throw your weapon, an absurdly quick ability that stuns enemies, but unless you’re going to quickly finish them off with a nearby weapon or John’s fists, it’s best left for a last resort.

"The system encourages you to mix things up between guns and melee, which is a good thing. It’s also necessary for bosses, who can’t be damaged by physical strikes and have high focus. "

You’ll also have to manage John’s focus, which allows him to use advanced abilities like takedowns, dodges, and roll when crouched. Replenishing it is easy – you push a button and John shakes his head like he’s trying to sober up – but it takes more than two seconds. In Hex, that’s an eternity, so you’ll want to be careful about when you do it. Most enemies have focus as well. Someone with a lot of it will be harder to hit from range, at least until you go in and soften them up with your fists. The system encourages you to mix things up between guns and melee, which is a good thing. It’s also necessary for bosses, who can’t be damaged by physical strikes and have high focus. Beating them means beating them up first, so while the initial stages of the fight are challenging as you try to get in range, they’re stupidly easy once you take away all of their focus.

Combining all of these abilities makes for some seriously fun engagements, especially against large groups, and John Wick Hex walks the fine line between making sure you feel powerful – John is more powerful than any given enemy that’s not a boss, and they’re merely his equal – and vulnerable at the same time. Yeah, John’s the boogeyman, and there’s a reason everyone in this story is afraid of him, but he’s also just a guy, and a few bullets will kill him just as fast as anyone else. When you’re playing well, you feel unstoppable, killing one enemy with strikes before parrying another, using a takedown to put yourself out of the line of fire of a third, throwing your gun at a fourth to interrupt his shot, and then picking up a nearby pistol to put him down while he’s stunned. It’s a ballet of bullets and death, and it feels best when you’re executing it flawlessly, pirouetting from one enemy to the next in an unstoppable, relentless advance.

But it’s not all tactics. There’s strategy, too. At the beginning of each chapter – a sequence of levels built around an area like the docks, back alleys, or art gallery – you can spend Continental coins to gain passive bonuses and stash bandages or weapons in a specific level. These coins don’t carry over between chapters, so you should spend them all. You’ll always want to snag the most powerful bonuses – more health, greater chance to evade while moving, reduced Focus cost, better accuracy, etc – but it’s worth stashing some bandages and weapons, too. Things become more expensive to stash in later levels, and you carry what you have between them, so there’s no reason not to stock up early.

"Sometimes it means you’ll enter an area with a poor gun (like a revolver), little health, and no bandages. In these scenarios, you’ll have to play flawlessly to advance, which can be a little frustrating."

This can be a double-edged sword, however. Sometimes it means you’ll enter an area with a poor gun (like a revolver), little health, and no bandages. In these scenarios, you’ll have to play flawlessly to advance, which can be a little frustrating. Dying sends you back to the beginning of the level with whatever you had at the time. Enemies are spawned a little differently each time, so you can’t just autopilot your way back to problem areas. This helps keep the game engaging when you die, so it’s not all bad, but it can be irritating when a single mistake can reset all of your progress, which is often the case in later levels. That said, you can get around this by learning to restart whenever you take unnecessary damage, and Hex almost never feels unfair. Whenever I died, I knew why, and had a better idea of what to do next time.

When you finish a level, you can watch a replay of what you did in real-time. It’s a neat system, but it also puts a spotlight on Hex’s greatest flaw: the animations. They’re stiff and repetitive (there are like two versions of the strike animation, so you’ll see them a lot by the time the credits roll), and the sound effects don’t always line up perfectly with the animations they support.

The latter issue also crops up with the game’s subtitles, which appear after a character has finished speaking, causing an odd sense of deja-vu. These issues are less noticeable as you’re playing because of the game’s pause and play nature, but they become very, very obvious as John moves woodenly from square to square during replays. Replays are optional, and it would be silly to expect a video game to match the smooth, impressive choreography of a John Wick film, but it feels like they didn’t even try here. These technical shortcomings extended to stability issues, too, and the game crashed on me twice during my playthrough.

"John Wick Hex is a solid adaptation of the source material, even if the animation systems can’t always cash the checks the gameplay writes and it sometimes feels a bit unpolished."

John Wick Hex isn’t a long game. Individual levels take mere minutes if you play them well, and I’d estimate most players will finish it in 8-10 hours. There is some replay value here in completing challenges and earning higher ratings or “names” by beating a par time, not using bandages, varying your weapon use, etc, and there’s an “expedited” mode that only gives you five seconds to take an action. Fail to do so, and the enemy gets to move while you wait. I don’t think it will cause most players any difficulty – you take turns pretty fast as it is – but it’s there if you want it.

All told, John Wick Hex is a solid adaptation of the source material, even if the animation systems can’t always cash the checks the gameplay writes and it sometimes feels a bit unpolished. It’s not a great game, but it is a good one, and one well worth checking out if you’re into the films or tactical games. Just remember: plan well, and don’t be afraid to spend some money before you head off on your mission. The tasting is more than worth it. Trust me.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Last year, when it was announced that a John Wick game would be coming, it wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. Based on the brash and loud action movies starring the one and only Keanu Reeves, John Wick Hex was more of a quick-paced strategy title. After the shock wore off, it ended up being a solid game (you can see the accolades trailer through here, for instance). Now the game will finally be coming to consoles as well.

As announced via the trailer below, the game is coming to Sony’s console next month. You get a look at the very distinct art style it sports, as well as a bit of the unique gameplay.

John Wick Hex has been on PC via the Epic Games Store since last year. As of now, the game is only set to come to PlayStation 4 on May 5th. No word yet on when the game will come to other consoles, but we’ll keep you updated.

When it comes to licensed games, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that we, the players, will never know about until well after the game is out. Property holders for popular franchises are notoriously picky for games and developers they give their license to. But it seems there wasn’t a lot of issue with one recent licensed title, John Wick Hex.

In an interview with Wccftech, developer Mike Bithell said that he was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to work with Lionsgate. If anything, he said there was a lot of support from them to help make the game the solid title it is. Them getting involved help him mold his vision of the title even better.

“It was very cool. The first year I couldn’t talk about it, which sucked. I told a few mates down the pub. Sorry, Ben. Ben’s the producer. And one of my best mates as well, so I told him, but it was all right. It was great. The collaboration has been phenomenal. Yeah, I genuinely couldn’t have asked for a better experience. The way we’ve been able to work with the films guys… I think people think a licensed game, you do it, you get the logo, you get to be able to say you’re making John Wick, but actually the key thing here is the people that come with the logo, you get all the support and help from the people who actually make these movies, and made these movies that people love. And that’s made us make a better game than if we had just made something like John Wick as a game. By getting those people involved and having their input we’ve actually made some things even better than we would on our own, which is great.”

Seems that the collaboration worked out very well overall, considering the game’s strong reception. It definitely wasn’t the John Wick game anyone actually expected, but one well worth having. John Wick Hex is available now exclusively on the PC.

Bithell Games’ John Wick Hex is now available on PC via the Epic Games Store. From the developer of Thomas Was Alone and Volume, the title is set in the John Wick universe but tells a completely original story. It’s been getting a pretty decent reception from critics – check out some of the accolades in the trailer below.

The concept behind the gameplay is managing a timeline of actions. You load actions for Wick onto the timeline, though each can take different amounts of time to execute. You also need to take reloading into account (especially since Wick fires two bullets into each enemy) though grabbing an enemy’s weapon is also a viable strategy.

John Wick Hex is exclusive to the Epic Games Store on PC but will be coming to consoles later. Check out some of the gameplay here to get a better idea of how it works. At some point, the game was meant to be X-COM with one character but that was scrapped.

John Wick Hex probably wasn’t the game you were expecting for an adaptation of the action film series. Okay, let’s be honest, there’s no “probably” there, it’s not something anyone would have expected (and at one point it was even less so like what we expected). But it is shaping up to be a pretty interesting title that hopes to capture the slickness and style of the successful movies, and one way is using the various stunts for the action in Hex.

The John Wick films are notable for their fantastic cinematography and stunt work. In the new feature, Lessons in Gun-Fu, we see how the game’s development team when to the film series stunt team to try and incorporate that slick action in nontraditional ways. It’s a fun watch, especially since it also gives you a little glimpse behind the curtain of how major action films do their stunts.

John Wick Hex is currently set to come to PC, though as of now there is no official release date.