Are we living in the midst of a Keanu Reeves renaissance? Obviously! Between the recent release of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and high profile cameo roles in the Netflix film Always Be My Maybe, the upcoming Toy Story 4 (as Canuck stunt man toy Duke Caboom), and starring as Wick in a game mode in the uber-popular Fortnite, it seems like the Canadian-American superstar is everywhere these days. And as if all of the above wasn’t enough, it’s recently been revealed that Reeves will soon return to the world of video games in Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red’s highly anticipated follow-up to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Of course Reeves is no stranger to the titular sci-fi genre, having starred in an adaptation of William Gibson’s cyberpunk story Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and and more famously the Wachowskis’ three Matrix films, but he’s also no stranger to video games. Sadly, we never got game adaptations of such Keanu classics as The Devil’s Advocate, Something’s Gotta Give, or The Lake House, but it might surprise you just how many Reeves movies got the video game treatment over the course of his career.
Amazingly there have somehow never been video game adaptations of three of Keanu’s most famous, action-packed movies – Point Break, Speed, and John Wick (unless you count his Fortnite appearance) – but given the track record of most licensed games (they’re almost always terrible) that’s probably for the best. However, if you’re seeing the Cyberpunk 2077 E3 trailer and your question is “What took the video game industry so long to get on the Keanu train?” then our question to you is where have you been for the past three decades?!
It’s not just Cyberpunk 2077! There have been a surprisingly amount of video games featuring Keanu Reeves over the years. Don’t believe us? Here are our top 5 Keanu Reeves video games!
5) Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure
Did you know that in addition to their big screen Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey, Bill S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted “Theodore” Logan (Reeves) also went on a small screen trip? No, we’re not talking about the short-lived animated TV series from the early ’90s, we’re talking about the famously difficult Nintendo game Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure. The notoriously difficult NES game was the first time Keanu Reeves was ever featured in a video game. If you enjoy aimlessly wandering through time – from Medieval World to Modern World to Ancient World – searching for seemingly random items while an 8-bit approximation of the late-great George Carlin chastises you for failing, boy, is this the game for you!
The duo would also be featured later in several other Bill & Ted games, including two handheld games for Gameboy and Atari Lynx and a point-and-click adventure game for MS-DOS.
[nextpage title=”4) Bram Stoker’s Dracula”]
Yes, of course there was a video game adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Why? Because 1990s, that’s why! In fact, there were several video games made out of the movie in several genres, including for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Gameboy, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Sega CD, Amiga, and PC.
Despite the movie version primarily being about the interplay between Gary Oldman’s titular vampire and Mina Harker (Winona Ryder), the game versions – be they side-scrollers or first-person shooters – always centered on Jonathan Harker (Reeves’ character from the film) as he fights assorted dragons, vampires, and zombies in a quest to defeat Dracula. The sidescrolling version was essentially a Castlevania knockoff, which is actually a pretty good model to follow if you’re making a vampire-based video game. Did Harker’s game sprite in any way resemble Keanu Reeves? Nope, not really. But these were official movie tie-in games released the same year as the film, so Jonathan Harker is canonically played by Reeves no matter the medium. We should just all be thankful that Keanu’s infamously terrible English accent did not translate to the video game versions of the movie.
[nextpage title=”3) The Matrix: Path of Neo”]
Written and directed by The Wachowskis two years after the release of The Matrix Revolutions (around the time everybody, including them had moved on to better things like V for Vendetta), Shiny Entertainment’s The Matrix: Path of Neo is essentially a retelling of the sci-fi action trilogy told entirely from the perspective of Neo (Reeves). Using the same game engine used for 2003’s Enter the Matrix, the game features clips from the three Matrix movies intercut with the action. What a concept! However, despite being based around Reeves’ character and featuring his likeness, Path of Neo‘s in-game cutscenes don’t actually feature his vocal talents. This might be okay if the voice actor had been a soundalike, but If there’s a video game equivalent to a TV clips show, this is it. If you want to experience The Matrix Trilogy then you should probably just stick to the movies.
[nextpage title=”2) Constantine”]
Add Constantine to the list of video games featuring Keanu Reeves based on movies that are themselves adapted from other works, in this case the Vertigo/DC comic series Hellblazer. Make sense? If you don’t remember the 2005 supernatural action movie then you definitely won’t remember the game version developed by Bits Studio. It might shock you to learn that the tie-in game, which was released on PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and mobile phones, was not particularly well received by critics, but it definitely earns points for its frightening accurate virtual Keanu. However, just like Path of Neo Reeves did not lend his voice to the game. That was your first mistake right there, guys. Did anyone even ask the man?!
[nextpage title=”1) The Matrix Online”]
Okay, so technically Neo (Reeves) is not in The Matrix Online – a massively multiplayer online role-playing game set after the events of The Matrix Reloaded – but the character’s body and “code” are both key plot points in the now cult MMO game. The spirit of Keanu is strong with this one! The story of The Matrix Online is… well, let’s just say it’s complex and involves disciples of Neo battling with Agents and the Machines, the Merovingians, and Zion, all while a very upset Morpheus (controlled by the game developers) runs amok in the Matrix planting bombs. The late great Joystiq has a pretty cool write-up of all the cool stuff Matrix fans missed out on if they didn’t play the game. The game shut down in 2009, but continues to live on in some form thanks to the efforts of its incredibly devoted community of modders. A dying virtual world protected by a group of elusive hackers? That seems pretty on brand. Keanu would be proud!
