John Wick Hexisn’t the first
licensed game Mike Bithell has
worked on. It’s just the first good
one. “Basically, game devs of a
certain age, we all worked on a
SpongeBob game,” he tells the
audience at Yorkshire Games
Festival. “It’s one of those
unifying truths.”
Before the breakout success of
Thomas Was Aloneallowed Bithell
to set up a full-time indie studio,
he had an unenviable window into
the world of adaptations.
Licensees would sometimes offer
studios just nine months in which
to throw together something
resembling a workable video
game.
“It’s not fun,” he says. “Italways comes down to a lack of
respect, that you’re being asked to
make something bad. And
everyone knows it’s bad upfront:
there’s no-one going into those
cheap, quick games thinking, ‘This
is going to redefine the genre.’”
In the movie business,
especially, spin-off games were
treated like an extension of
merchandising, rather than
opportunities to expand cinematic
universes in meaningful fashion.
“You’re essentially a lunch box,”
as Bithell puts it. “Think about
how difficult it would be to get
Steven Spielberg’s sign-off on
everyE .T.toy. It’s something where
you’re kept at arm’s length,
usually.”JohnWickHex shows the
true benefit of collaboration
between movie and video
game studios
JohnWickHexgamedirectorMikeBithellreflectsonhowthe
makeupofHollywood boardrooms is changing to the benefit
of video games.DISCOVER
Games featureEmbracingauthenticity
Which is why it was such a
surprise for Bithell to find himself
sharing a room withJohn Wick’s
series director, Chad Stahelski,
while the latter was in the process
of editingJohn Wick 3. The two
would trade ideas as Bithell was
developing his real-time strategy
game spinoff,John Wick Hex. In
Stahelski’s case, this trading of
ideas would mainly be pointing
out where the game sucked. It’s
down to him thatJohn Wick Hex
has a fog of war mechanic, as
Stahelski helpfully noted that
Keanu Reeves can’t see
through walls.
Why are developers only now
getting such unrivalled access to
the movie industry? Put simply,
it’s because there’s finally an
audience for the kind of authentic,
collaborative adaptations that
John Wick Hexexemplifies.
“In my first meeting with
[production company andJohn
Wickdistributor] Lionsgate, they
said, ‘We want to be making
GoldenEye,’” Bithell recalls.
“That’s a high bar, but the
objective is now to make goodSpin-offgameswere
treatedlikeanextension
ofmerchandising,ratherthanopportunities
toexpandcinematic
universesinmeaningful
fashion.