Developed by Bithell Games (which recently released Tron: Catalyst to above-average reviews), Hex features an original story starring the infamous Baba Yaga himself. While Keanu Reeves doesn’t lend his voice, you can look forward to actors Lance Reddick and Ian McShane reprising their characters.

Though a reason for the game’s delisting wasn’t revealed, it could be due to licensing costs. John Wick Hex launched in 2019 for PC via the Epic Games Store and eventually released for PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Steam. It garnered some positive reviews but ultimately achieved Metascores in the 70s. Check out our review for more details – we also gave it a seven out of ten.

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.

Cue the “We’re thinking he’s back” reference – Bithell Games’ John Wick Hex has officially gone gold. The news was confirmed by game director and writer Mike Bithell on Twitter with a gold disc image. The game is currently digital only but it’s more of a metaphor for its completed state (launch patches notwithstanding).

Taking place in the same universe, John Wick Hex has players taking control of the legendary hitman. The action strategy gameplay involves planning each action accordingly, reacting to your opponents’ moves and staying several steps ahead. Just remember that even reloading is an important tactical decision.

Releasing on October 8th for PC, John Wick Hex is exclusive to the Epic Games Store. It will come to consoles at some point later. Check out some of the tactical gun-fu action here for a better idea of how combat works. Alternatively, you can read about how the game was previously meant to be X-COM with a single character.

https://twitter.com/mikeBithell/status/1176465885650980864

Bithell Games’ John Wick Hex, developed by Mike Bithell of Thomas Was Alone and Volume fame, has a release date. It’s out on October 8th for the Epic Games Store and will cost $19.99. There’s no word yet on the Xbox One and PS4 versions but a snazzy release date trailer was provided. Check it out below.

Taking place in the John Wick universe (obviously), John Wick Hex sees our main man battling against a new foe named Hex. Various other characters like Charon and Winston, voiced by Lance Reddick and Ian McShane respectively, also feature. This isn’t a guns-blazing shooter but a tactical action strategy game where every move must be thought out, even when to reload.

Progressing through the story will unlock new weapons and suits so there’s plenty to look forward to. That’s on top of the graphical novel-esque aesthetic. Stay tuned for more details on John Wick Hex, which at one point was meant to be XCOM with one character as per Bithell.

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.

Bithell Games’ John Wick Hex is an intriguing strategy title, not least because it features the iconic John Wick character. However, throughout the game, players adhere to a timeline that will pause and start the gameplay depending on what you do. It’s dynamic, but previously, this was meant to be a more traditional turn-based strategy title.

DualShockers spoke to studio head Mike Bithell at E3 2019 and he explained why that system didn’t really fit the original vision of the films.  “It was XCOM with one character and it sucked,” said Bithell. “It was the worst version of what you imagine when you think of a John Wick strategy game. It was slow, it was deliberate, and you’d do your move and then you’d watch as five guys would just take turns to shoot John.”

Co-designer and lead programmer Nic Tringali also felt the same, and said it was important to have other characters busy while you’re engaged in the action. As for the turn-based system, Tringali said, “It doesn’t really feel right even though all the moves are there, the look is there… it doesn’t feel suited to what’s going on in the movies. So [we] pulled that out and went ‘ok, you have actions and it’s all on this timeline system.’

“The most important thing is everyone is always doing something while you’re doing it…so that’s the fast-paced action of it…While the whole game will stop and pause and let you do your own thing, as soon as you hit go again, it’s full speed.”

John Wick Hex is a prequel to the films, and though its combat system functions more on a timeline, it still contains many of the genre’s tropes. Fog of war, hex-based grid movement, and more can be expected. As of now, the game doesn’t have a release date, but it will be coming to PC via the Epic Games Store. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

In perhaps one of the more shocking recent announcements, Mike Bithell (of Thomas Was Alone, Volume fame) has confirmed that he’s working on a John Wick game. John Wick Hex isn’t your typical action title though – it’s a fast paced action strategy game. It’s out on PC via the Epic Games Store first, and will come to consoles later.

The trailer below gives a very rough idea of the gameplay.  The description provided of this being essentially “fight-choreographed chess brought to life as a video game” probably doesn’t do it either. Regardless, you’ll have to carefully select each action, with the consequences becoming immediately apparent. You even need to be careful about how much ammo is in each clip. Don’t want to reload at the worst time, right?

With a different story from the films, John Wick Hex provides new weapons and suits to unlock as players progress. You’ll explore new locations as well, with everything coated in a “graphic noir art” style. You can even expect actors like Ian McShane and Lance Reddick to lend their voices, though Keanu Reeves’ involvement is currently unknown. Check out the trailer below courtesy of IGN.