‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ director reveals game that inspired the film’s top-down shootout

John Wick: Chapter 4 director Chad Stahelski has shared that the film’s top-down shootout in Paris was inspired by 2019 game The Hong Kong Massacre.

In Stahelski’s latest film, one shootout sees Wick – played by Keanu Reeves – moving through a firefight in a large building in Paris, using a pistol and Dragon’s Breath shotgun rounds to fend off attackers.

The camera follows Wick from above, meaning the scene looked familiar to fans of top-down shooter games. While some fans drew comparisons to Hotline Miami, an action game that plays out with a similar perspective, both Reeves and Stahelski told IGN that they were unfamiliar with it.

John Wick: Chapter 4’s Dragon’s Breath scene was influenced by the game Hong Kong Massacre. #JohnWick4 pic.twitter.com/09KFzEarFS

— IGN (@IGN) March 28, 2023

However, Stahelski revealed that another game – The Hong Kong Massacre, developed by Vreski – helped to inspire the shootout.

“Top shots were never very cool with us, with lighting or choreography, because it gets old quick,” Stahelski told Slash Film.

“But I had seen this video game and I’ll throw a shout-out — I think it was called Hong Kong Massacre — they did this top shot and we had been doing so much with the big muzzle flashes and it just kind of clicked like, ‘Well, if I’m above, we shoot like this and we shoot like this, and it draws these cool lines with the muzzle flash, and if I get the right flicker effect, it’s like Etch A Sketch.’”

“It looks really cool,” added Stahelski. “It was a different way to amp up the action and keep you in that video game mode that John Wick’s kind of known for, that first-person shooter kind of thing.”

NME gave John Wick four stars out of five in our review, praising it as “an all-action blockbuster that truly gives it all”.

In other gaming news, The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom has received a 10-minute gameplay video showcasing Link’s new abilities.