TeaserPlay, a community project that creates fan-made concept videos of games, has released a video on a John Wick concept created with Unreal Engine 5. The people at TeaserPlay used the newest technologies provided by the latest Unreal Engine to create Keanu Reeves' appearance from John Wick, appropriate settings from the movies, and fighting scenes with knuckles and guns.
John Wick is the neo-noir action franchise created by screenwriter Derek Kolstad. The main protagonist, a former hitman called John Wick, is played by Keanu Reeves in the movies. The franchise has so far included only one game, a tactical turn-based RPG developed by Bithell Games. Since the release of John Wick Hex, there hasn't been another John Wick game, although one might be in the works.
The fact that there hasn't been an action-oriented John Wick game yet is a little perplexing, and TeaserPlay shares that sentiment. Furthermore, the big-budget John Wick game that has been hinted at by Lionsgate has been an inspiration for TeaserPlay to make this fantasy of theirs into a video.
The minute-and-a-half concept trailer features John Wick in various settings, including driving his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS through the deserts, fist-fighting evil henchmen, and having Max Payne-like shootouts. Speaking of Max Payne, TeaserPlay has also created a concept video for the Max Payne remake with Unreal Engine 5. One of the more impressive recreations of the trailer is the scene where John Wick is riding a horse through the streets of New York City at night inspired by the latest John Wick movie.
According to TeaserPlay, used in the trailer are the most advanced technologies enabled by Unreal Engine 5 to create realistic-looking characters and environments. These include lighting with ray tracing, screen space reflections, and a technology called Lumen, which illuminates the world with realistic direct and indirect light. The detail of the world is created by Unreal Engine's Nanite technology, a virtualized geometry system that allows immense pixel scale detail and high object counts in vast spaces.
Keanu Reeves was recreated in the concept video with the help of Unreal Engine 5's MetaHuman, a framework that allows the creation of photorealistic digital humans in a reasonable timeframe. While creation is impressive for a fan video, it isn't meant to be a full-fledged game trailer. Some aspects of the trailer have been worked on more than others, but all-in-all it shows that gamers definitely deserve a proper John Wick action-adventure game. However, before that is ready for the limelight, if it indeed happens, there's the big-budget Max Payne remake that is already in development.