Skip to main content

John Wick VR shooter coming in 2016

John Wick
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Lionsgate Films and Payday publisher Starbreeze announced that they have teamed up to develop a virtual reality first-person shooter based on the hit Keanu Reeves-led action film John Wick. The game is expected to launch on most commercial VR headsets in Spring 2016.

“We’re thrilled to partner with the best of the best in VR and game development with Starbreeze, WEVR, and Grab, who are collaborating with the movie’s producers to ensure an exciting, immersive and authentic virtual experience,” said Lionsgate President of Interactive Ventures & Games Peter Levin. “John Wick is the perfect cross-platform property to extend into the fast-growing gaming world, and we believe that a cutting edge VR game will deepen fan engagement and accelerate John Wick’s evolution into one of our next big action franchises.”

Development is being spearheaded by Grab Games, primarily a creator of mobile titles such as Hero Havoc and Gold Miner Go! and WEVR, the VR production studio responsible for the impressive theBlu: Encounter, a deep-sea demo which was used to show off the HTC Vive VR headset earlier this year. Starbreeze, the Stockholm-based developer and publisher behind the Payday series of heist games and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, will publish. Starbreeze and Lionsgate have already collaborated on a John Wick DLC character pack for Payday 2.

Few details about the game have been announced, but it will feature the characters and story of the John Wick film, centered around “the infamous Continental Hotel.” A preview of the game will be shown off as part of the HTC Vive World Tour this summer all around the United States and Europe. A demo will be available when the Vive launches later this year (it is not clear whether this is the same demo being shown as part of the tour) through SteamVR. The full game is then expected to launch in Spring 2016.

John Wick stars Keanu Reeves as a retired hit man who gets back into the game to exact revenge on some gangsters that screwed him. It was a surprise hit that we really enjoyed. A sequel is currently in development, indicating that it is already in the process of becoming a multimedia blockbuster franchise.

Editors' Recommendations

Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
HTC just fixed a major shortcoming of standalone VR headsets
Tech of the Week HTC Vive Tracker

HTC Vive recently announced a new virtual reality tracker specifically designed for standalone VR headsets like the Vive XR Elite and Vive Focus 3. The VR division of this tech giant also makes base stations and motion-tracking hardware that's required for most PC VR headsets.

In VR, your head motion is detected by sensors in the headset while your hand position is captured by the controllers. What's missing is body tracking. That means the game or app has no way of knowing for certain where your feet and hips are. That's why trackers are needed.

Read more
Winston battles the underworld in John Wick’s The Continental trailer
Two assassins point guns at a man sitting down in The Continental.

Winston Scott aims to seize control of the famous hotel for assassins in the latest trailer for The Continental: From the World of John Wick, the prequel spinoff series from Peacock.

The Continental is set in 1970s New York City and follows a young Winston (Ambulance's Colin Woodall), who will one day manage The Continental Hotel in the John Wick franchise. The series explores Winston's origins and how he came to "take the house and everything that comes with it."

Read more
The Apple Vision Pro has given VR its iPhone moment
A person is watching a movie using the Apple Vision Pro.

"One more thing" means you're about to be treated to something groundbreaking -- and that's exactly what happened when Apple CEO Tim Cook uttered those fateful three words at the end of the recent Worldwide Developers Conference 2023 keynote. The Apple Vision Pro is not just another VR headset; no, it's an incredible piece of technology that pushes the boundaries of what we can expect from both virtual reality and augmented reality. The display tech, sensor quality, and polish are like nothing we've ever seen before in a headset — and they signal a big jump forward in VR and AR tech.

The only quibble is the price: $3,500. That's a whole lot of cash, and due to that, I'm not confident the Vision Pro will appear in every other house in the next few years.

Read more