Wolfenstein, The New Order
Producer: Bethesda
Release Date: May 20, 2014
Platform: Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, PC
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-Person Shooter
New World Order
Written by Jesse Seilhan
As publishers get more and more desperate to reach the top of the sales chart, going back to the well has been a fairly common practice. Hundreds of properties have been brought back from the dead, some great and some not-so-much, but the experiment is always interesting to watch. When Bethesda said they were bringing back Wolfenstein, many shooter fans groaned, as it has been done time and time again, but nothing since the original 1992 Wolfenstein 3D has actually been a worthwhile game set in this universe. Even more groans were uttered when multiplayer was left on the cutting room floor, as developer MachineGames wanted to focus on telling a compelling story without having to split their time and resources. Cut to 2014 and the Wolfenstein: The New Order has finally been released, and is shockingly excellent.
It is really hard to believe that a franchise that has been drug through the mud so much could make a convincing reason to continue existing, but this game does just that. First and foremost, the game looks great, running on the “Rage” engine id made popular a few years back with a game of the same name. The controls are as snappy as a game can be in the modern console age, allowing players to dual-wield a variety of weapons and dump ammo with ease and precision. The level design is more open than expected, letting you tackle scenarios in different ways. The sound design is fantastic, with gun shots echoing just right and the reworked versions of classic tunes into the German language is quite effective in increasing the game’s “believability” factor.
As surprising as this might seem, the story is potentially the best part of The New Order. Our hero, B.J. Blazkowicz, is back to kill some nazis, but the twist here is that he failed to do so during Hitler’s initial uprising and was put into a semi-coma for more than a decade. When he gets back on his feet, the Nazis have won, the United States has fallen, and the world is a radically different place. This changes the very nature of city structures, art, and architecture. All the heroic characters are made up of different backgrounds and creeds, all displaced by the Nazi regime and looking for some payback. B.J. is the bravest of them all, transforming form merely a grunting face at the bottom of your tiny PC monitor to a fully fleshed-out character with a honest range of emotions.
The game sticks close to the tried-and-true 90’s FPS formulas, but has learned what makes an engaging single-player, breaking up the action between insane firefights with brief side-missions that involve more exploration and dialogue than throat-slitting. When the action does heat up, you would be hard pressed to find a more violent game this year. You’ll be yelling “Xbox, record that!” with a twisted smile once you start playing around with the excellent stealth mechanics, often ending in a bloody spray erupting from one Nazi scum or another.
What should have been another retread into World War II beaten-to-death territory became a smart, fresh, engaging, and most importantly, extremely fun entry into a series that has not been treated too kindly over the years. The New Order shows what an aging franchise in the right hands can actually turn into, especially when given the time, the tools, and the vision needed to return a classic to glory. No, it does not have the morphine-drip multiplayer every shooter since Modern Warfare has been bloodsworn into having, but the story is good enough to make that irrelevant. If you are looking for a great shooter that truly rises above the average zoom and shoot copycat modern military borefest, give this game a shot.