Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Tested on: PC
Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus – Preview
Do you know those jokes on the internet about German words being pronounced very harsh to make them sound ridiculous and angry? Schmetterling, meaning butterfly as an example. Did you know the very first Wolfenstein 3D on PC from 1992, controversial because of shooting Nazis with a robot Hitler as the endgame boss? Do you know some big shooter titles that are important today? Mash all these things together and you get the current Wolfenstein series, with part II: The New Colossus coming up.
The second game picks up where the first part left us, only a few months later. B.J. Blazkowicz, our tough protagonist soldier, has been in a coma for some time and wakes up just in time to take down some Nazis invading his current base. It would be stupid to spoil the introductions much more because the opening is pretty awesome with some unique point-of-view gameplay. This much can be said: There will be familiar characters, the same black over-the-top humor and Nazi impressions, and a dose of sadism and scenes you are forced to watch every now and then. So kids, close your eyes. Adults, it’s ok to look away every now and then.
Right off the bat, the improvements compared to the previous part are noticeable. The graphics have improved and the physics when shooting seem to be tweaked a bit as well. The game just runs more smoothly and it seems like the same smoothness is smeared over other aspects. Where the first part, The New Order, seemed slightly chaotic in its story and sometimes pathways, so far it looks like the story setup and map design have been improved as well. It just seems better thought through with more accurate punchlines and a better choreography in cinematics.
Of course, there are also guns involved. Also some famous ones from the game before like the (shout in German) laserkraftwerk. They changed the way you upgrade your weapons. Previously you gained weapon upgrades by picking things up throughout the story. Now you collect resources and decide yourself which weapon you want to make into something amazing. Obviously, a broad arsenal is needed since the Nazis have also improved a bit over time and kept creating new stuff to obliterate you and the ones you love. Speaking of those, the number of people you love increases with new additions to your group of strong versatile characters with each their own background and mindset. Some people who you would never expect you to join will even be added to your crew, ready to fight for a good cause.
The only thing that’s not clear yet is if the different timelines you could choose in Wolfenstein part I also affect the second part of the game. In part one, you at some point had the choice to save either a private in your forces or a sergeant, each with their own characteristics and timeline. It didn’t matter much for the missions itself but it did for the cutscenes and a small part of the gameplay. When choosing the private you could also pick locks for some reason, when choosing the sergeant you could only hotwire safes and doors, both creating their own unique pathways in levels from time to time. It would be nice if some same type of mechanic would be implemented into the second part, either following up on the first or as a stand-alone feature to improve replayability. However, we won’t know until the full game comes out.
Conclusion
It looks like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus will be a great game with exactly what you will expect from it plus a little bit more. There have been more improvements, more humor, more Nazis and more shooting. It’s a questionable surprise how the entire story will flow and what Bethesda has in store for us exactly along the way, but they can’t do that much wrong in this game it seems.
Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus - Preview,
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