Metascore
74

Mixed or average reviews - based on 53 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 53
  2. Negative: 2 out of 53
  1. Oct 8, 2019
    73
    John Wick Hex succeeds by building a uniquely time-based strategy framework but is pulled down by a lack of polish and repetitive elements along the way. If you can accept it’s rougher elements it’s well worth playing, but ultimately it could’ve used some additional development time to flesh everything out and really capture the flair of the Wick franchise.
  2. Nov 20, 2019
    70
    John Wick Hex offers very good gameplay which focuses on tactics rather than action, which is a nice break from the movie, but the low budget has had profound effects on the graphics that feels like they're from an antique mobile game.
  3. Oct 15, 2019
    70
    The way it approaches tactical battles, make John Wick Hex not only interesting, but quite unique. But it also starts to show the lack of diversity too soon.
  4. Oct 11, 2019
    70
    Despite its punitive difficulty and the rigidity, John Wick Hex remains a good adaptation of the movies. Artistic direction and the way you go into action are enjoyable and the pleasure of having managed to get out of a critical situation is a real satisfaction.
  5. Oct 10, 2019
    70
    Despite its weird approach, John Wick Hex shows it has well understand the character : you’re always trying to find the most optimized way to hit and kill. The game doesn’t evolve much more beyond that, though.
  6. Oct 8, 2019
    70
    John Wick Hex is a fun tie-in that fall on depth and progression in mechanics, never managing to win the heart of the player.
  7. Oct 8, 2019
    70
    John Wick Hex is a worthwhile playthrough for those with a fondness for turn-based strategy games or a desire for a challenge, but remains tough to recommend to those who only want another opportunity to spend time in the established world of John Wick.
  8. Oct 8, 2019
    70
    The high random factor in the absolutely necessary restarts in each level, the somewhat too high degree of difficulty for my taste and the associated frustration factor makes from John Wick Hex not a bad, but also not a recommended game.
  9. Oct 8, 2019
    70
    John Wick Hex is the last form you might expect a John Wick game to take, but this unique, inventive puzzler kept my mind racing from beginning to end. While the gameplay and interesting story shed light on some important aspects of the film franchise, the sometimes punishing difficulty and surprising lack of focus on John Wick himself left me a little disappointed. This isn't a perfect video game adaptation of a film, but it's certainly the most original one I've ever played.
  10. Oct 11, 2019
    68
    John Wick Hex is a game made for the franchise lovers. Since this is a minor production, there are pros and cons: there are indeed good gameplay and a good idea, but also a lack of progression and a feeling of repetition that makes you lose a little the desire to continue further.
  11. Oct 8, 2019
    68
    John Wick Hex is a simple, smart tactics game but its distracting lack of polish often thwarts its attempt to distill the fast action of the movies into deliberate gameplay.
  12. Oct 14, 2019
    67
    Fans of the film will certainly find things to like, but as you dig deeper into John Wick Hex, more and more of its flaws begin to surface. Bithell has always proven himself a creative game-maker, but he can't stick the landing on this one.
  13. Nov 22, 2019
    65
    John Wick Hex does a lot of things right and has personality to spare. It can also be irritating — sometimes overwhelmingly so — but it kept me coming back for more, even after realizing that I probably won’t see the end credits anytime soon.
  14. Oct 18, 2019
    65
    The gameplay in John Wick Hex definitely captures the essence of the impressive choreography seen in the movies, albeit with some caveats. Namely the animation variety is very restricted and, in some cases, seems a bit incomplete. Moreover, the abilities of John Wick are a bit limited and remain as such throughout the game. Nevertheless, it still remains a clever twist in the turn-based genre, by letting the action unfold simultaneously for both our character and the enemies, creating some quite challenging combat scenarios with unexpected depth to them.
  15. CD-Action
    Nov 25, 2019
    60
    The janky animations of John Wick’s acrobatics spoil the whole movie-to-game experience. And to think that motion capture could have made it one of the most interesting games of this fall. [13/2019, p.65]
  16. Edge Magazine
    Nov 10, 2019
    60
    It feels best when you're making snap decisions, the action moving along with a satisfying pop, pop, pop rhythm that echoes the films. [Issue#133, p.104]
  17. Oct 8, 2019
    60
    John Wick Hex is a fun experience, but one that woefully fails to deliver on its premise. Nothing really demonstrates this more than the ability to play back each completed mission in real-time. The idea of watching all of your methodical, turn-based actions playing out in cinematic, gun-fu action is certainly tantalizing, but actually manifests as watching janky, eight-way movement alongside strange collision detection, limited animation and questionable camera angles.
  18. 55
    John Wick Hex's early pretence of fulfilling strategy gives way to a maddening trial and error experience that simply doesn't do the license justice.
  19. 50
    John Wick Hex tries to get you into the mind of an assassin. However, the execution falls flat, and it quickly devolves into a repetitive slog, with little content, polish, or much of that strategy the developers were aiming for.
  20. Oct 8, 2019
    50
    John Wick Hex has a solid enough foundation, but it largely fails to build on its core concept. It's a one-dimensional tactics game that moves at a glacially slow pace and features few unique wrinkles. It offers a slightly deeper look at the lore, but otherwise it adds little to the burgeoning John Wick-verse.
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  1. Oct 8, 2019
    Great if you like tough tactical games; a harder sell if you're merely a fan of the films.
  2. Oct 8, 2019
    Stylish cinematic super-violence is transformed into smart temporal puzzles. [Eurogamer Recommended]
  3. Oct 15, 2019
    Overall, the game's solid. It's pretty, it's fun, but it's not without issues. In other words, it's worth the $20 you'll pay for it, but not much more.
  4. Oct 8, 2019
    A normal shooter game wouldn't really do John Wick justice. John Wick Hex captures the kind of tactical thinking that the Keanu Reeves action hero requires to be the deadly boogieman he's known to be, and also works as a fun and inventive puzzle/action game.
  5. Oct 8, 2019
    Generally, the gameplay works beautifully.
  6. I had a great time with John Wick Hex. It tiptoes the line between tactics and puzzler in an engaging way, has a ton of character, and feels exactly as minimal as it needs to be: you pick up a working vocabulary of Wickensian tricks, just in time to be tested on them. Its slip-ups tend to just make it more charming, while most repetition can be offset by going for challenges that ask you to play quicker and smarter.
  7. Oct 8, 2019
    John Wick Hex is a smart take on the franchise in many ways, and it might well click for you more than it did for me. (If it does, I’m not saying you’re cut out to be an assassin, just to be clear.) But while I respect its substance, I came away wishing for a little more style.
User Score
4.5

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 56 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 56
  2. Negative: 31 out of 56
  1. Oct 8, 2019
    3
    John Wick Hex has the bones of a good turn-based strategy buried somewhere in there, but it just feels half baked in a whole host of ways. TheJohn Wick Hex has the bones of a good turn-based strategy buried somewhere in there, but it just feels half baked in a whole host of ways. The UI is misleading and can be downright frustrating to use at times, with weird oversights like using ammunition having the exact same visual effect as losing health. Frequently, your ability to click on things will be blocked for seemingly no reason, leading to a lot of camera finagling and irritating, avoidable misclicks. The camera as a whole is just bad, with your only option of rotation being left and right. Zooming in and out slightly alters the vertical perspective of the camera, with zooming in all the way offering a marginally more flat view and zooming out completely being almost completely top-down. This camera system causes a lot of unnecessary frustration because it makes trying to figure out what counts as cover, what constitutes line of sight and what can be ducked behind an inexact science at best and an exercise in futility at worst. Adding to that annoyance is the fact that enemies will pretty frequently shoot you through cover that you just manage to make it behind, leaving a bullet trail straight through the cover you made it to, because accuracy isn't static or primarily determined by line of sight. Your ability to hit shots, and the ability of your enemies, is random, skewed slightly by things like distance and stance. This is a bad move for a turn-based strategy for obvious reasons, but far worse is random enemy placement and type. You're guaranteed the same number of enemies in any given level, and a set number of those are bigger variants of the standard enemies, but the placement and type of all the standard enemies is randomized, meaning that you can come into a level at a major disadvantage because you're being rushed by a half dozen melee enemies, with one ranged enemy at the back that can fire straight through his allies to hit you, because friendly fire isn't a mechanic. I'd imagine this is intended to allow a more reactive style of gameplay, but this puts a lot of potential for planning and, well, strategy out the window. On top of this is the poorly implemented timeline mechanic, where the idea is that you can see the next moves of your enemies and plan ahead accordingly, but all it shows you is the action they're currently in the middle of when it's time to make your next move. Enemies act somewhat predictably but sometimes they wait and reposition at odd times and sometimes enemies you haven't seen yet will come out of the woodwork during a longer action to interrupt you, and it all just contributes to an overarching feeling of not having enough information to plan any cogent course of action.

    TL;DR
    John Wick Hex could be decent, but it's bogged down by too many design oversights and issues of clarity in its mechanics to work. It's in a bad enough state right now that I don't think it'll get anywhere good unless it's worked on consistently for a few months. Until then, give this one a miss.
    Full Review »
  2. Oct 9, 2019
    0
    This game is really really boring. The animation looks like you are a marionette puppet. It really it just laughable.
  3. Oct 10, 2019
    0
    One question : What the **** ????
    This has to be the worst movie character based game EVER !
    What the hell is wrong with the people who gave
    One question : What the **** ????
    This has to be the worst movie character based game EVER !
    What the hell is wrong with the people who gave the rights to the devs that made the game ???
    John Wick needs to be a proper third person shooter, not some click to kill game !
    Full Review »