As we'll discuss later, Wolfenstein: The New Order bore down on emotionally grounded storytelling and embraced real-world themes that the series had long avoided, like controversially acknowledging the Holocaust, to set itself apart from what had come before. By contrast, The Old Blood a standalone six-hour experience released between The New Order and The New Colossus marked a return to the pure pulp of the first decade of Wolfenstein first-person shooters.
The supernatural including zombies was back, and so were stony castles and crypts packed with secrets to uncover. Originally conceived as an expansion pack for Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Enemy Territory launched in as a freeware standalone team-based multiplayer game that pitted the Allies versus the Axis across six maps. Beyond Doom being a huge success, Wolfenstein's concept and execution of said concept were pretty straight to the point: You're a dude killing Nazis.
What was there to expand, really? Return to Castle Wolfenstein answered that question in more ways than probably intended. Developed with the id Tech 3 engine Quake 3, Call of Duty , RTCW was a looker of a game for its time, and even to this day, it has enough dark fantasy elements to make it stand out among its peers. Getting embroiled in firefights with Nazis in the narrow stone corridors of a castle is fun enough, but the added presence of Frankenstein-like monsters and other monstrosities ratchets up the tension good thing you have a flamethrower.
The tonal shift of Return to Castle Wolfenstein from 3D's slightly bloody arcade take violence to literal hellish darkness also cast a thematic shadow of gloom over the series that has remained. This is also the entry that introduces the deliciously evil Doctor Deathshead. Outside of its building blocks, it doesn't hurt that Return To Castle Wolfenstein remains mostly a fun ride that balances gothic dread with sci-fi camp to great effect. Before Doom, there was Wolfenstein 3D.
Sure, there had been games you could quibble about and technically call first-person shooters, like Hovertank 3D, but the first-person shooter genre we know today was born with Wolfenstein and protagonist BJ Blazkowicz. A man, a gun, and a lot of bad guys to kill. The New Order ended on a tidy note of finality and emotional gravitas. After failing to stop him the first time, BJ took on his nemesis again, killed him in a satisfying battle, and brought the world a chance at hope in a finale that smacked of a pyrrhic victory.
If Wolfenstein had ended there, it would have been a satisfying, dignified conclusion that video game series so rarely get.
However, the New Colossus proves to be a worthy sequel. If The New Order was a somber tale about a world gone awry, The New Colossus is one about the righteous anger needed to reclaim it.
Set in America in the s, BJ and crew ostensibly mount a new American Revolution to run the Nazis out of the country. Few first-person shooter campaigns have ever been packed with as many wild moments as The New Colossus. Sure, elements of the combat are divisive.
Segments featuring a weakened BJ as well as a finicky incoming grenade indicator could make for frustrating encounters. Powers available mid-game and onward let you turn the tables and absolutely annihilate foes. Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game that few people wanted. The initial reveal and trailers were met with shrugs and questions about who would actually want to play a new Wolfenstein game in the year Luckily, the same talent that set a new bar for licensed games with Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay and The Darkness came to the cobweb-covered property with more than a few ideas of how to bring the franchise back to life.
Ultimately, it fails , and BJ falls into a coma. When he awakens, the world has been overtaken by Nazis. The New Order paints a compelling portrait of suffering without reveling in it to the point of excess.
Everyone in the resistance is traumatized, from kind-hearted Anya to paraplegic Caroline and resentful Fergus. Layered on top of all of this is the fact there are two separate world instances depending on a choice you make at the beginning of the game, with scenarios that play out differently and new characters in each playthrough.
Existing alongside this compelling and sad world is a fantastic combat system that balances old-school first-person shooter design notably eschewing the health-regen mechanic of the entry with an RPG-lite skill tree called the perk system that lets you earn enhancements by performing certain actions during the game.
There's nothing really notable to mention when it comes to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory — the game featured no story or single-player mode whatsoever, with its multiplayer being the only draw for players to download the game. The idea of one of the most beloved fast-paced shooters turning into an RPG title is something that could've been an absolute disaster, but props should be given to id Software for making this idea a reality Just like Doom RPG, Wolfenstein RPG was an excellent reimagining of the franchise that had a greater emphasis on humor and story — a combination that proved to be rather successful for the game in many ways.
Regardless of how surprisingly good the Wolfenstein RPG might've been, there was no denying the fact that long-time fans of the series wanted their favorite FPS franchise to feature more games that catered to this genre — something that was accomplished with the release of Wolfenstein in Serving as a loose sequel to Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein was a fairly competent shooter This sent the franchise into a downward spiral that was finally stopped with the release of the next title.
A new and fresh chapter in the Wolfenstein series that pulled no punched when it came to treating the narrative with as much care and precision as the gunplay itself, Wolfenstein: The New Order was a fantastic return to form for the series Blazkowicz himself. Given the massive success of The New Order, it was only a given that MachineGames would build upon this excellent foundation and allow players to experience the modern gameplay of Wolfenstein once again.
This is exactly what Wolfenstein: The Old Blood set out to achieve. Players who wanted a fitting sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order would have to wait three more years until the launch of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus — a new chapter in Blazkowicz's tale as he continued to fight against Nazi oppression and liberate America from this Aryan tyranny.
Everything was bigger and better in The New Colossus , with everything from the story to the gunplay receiving a significant overhaul as the player still accomplished the same-old task of mowing down Nazis throughout a whole host of levels.
Given the excellent quality of The New Colossus, fans expected the next chapter in the modern Wolfenstein series to be just as good, if not better. However, Wolfenstein: Youngblood ended up taking the series in a direction that was derided by many. While Blazkowicz was an intriguing character in his own right, his daughters did not connect with players nearly as well. Along with this, the RPG mechanics coupled with shallow co-op gameplay turned Wolfenstein: Youngblood into an absolute chore to get through at times.
Wolfenstein's attempt to try out VR gameplay did not turn out to be the success that some of its earlier FPS titles were, with Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot being an abysmally short and unpleasant playing experience. While it might understandably be challenging to integrate VR into modern games, Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot ends up implementing this gameplay as an on-the-rails shooter, which strays from the elements that made Wolfenstein what it was.
Jungling can make or break a game in Pokemon Unite, so if you don't know how to do it, please leave it for someone else. Related: Wolfenstein: The New Order - Best Chapters, Ranked The history of the Wolfenstein series is a long and enlightening one, with the franchise actually starting out with a completely different concept and direction before rebranding itself to become the Nazi-killing first-person shooter that we all know and love.
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