Wolfenstein the New Order

[Mhaedros]

From issue 10 of the Gamer's Gazette. Go read it if you haven't already.

Wolfenstein The New Order

Wolfenstein New Order

Wolfenstein the New Order, the latest installment in the Wolfenstein franchise, or rather a reboot of it, is a first person shooter released in 2014 developed by Machine Games and published by Bethesda. It puts you in the boots of BJ Blazkowicz (never again shall I attempt to spell this name), a nazi obliterating killing machine in the middle of World War 2, 1946. Notice something wrong there? Well, in this alternate universe the nazi warmachine was not in fact stopped and thanks to their superior technology they are on the brink of victory. The Allies have launched one last attempt to destroy the head of the nazi warmachine, general Deathshead, once and for all, but obviously that doesn’t turn out too well and BJ is put in a coma for 14 years.

Even writing this it feels like the game ought to be a mindless shooter with a naive story and obnoxiously obvious good and bad guys, and yet...The New Order has a curious absurdity that makes it much deeper than you could ever think it could be. When BJ wakes up to find a nazi ruled world, to find his beloved USA has surrendered to the Germans, there is real emotion there. The game has an almost Max Payne-esque feeling of bitterness and despair at times, and then it goes straight back to shooting nazis’ heads off with a shotgun in each hand. On the one hand it shows what a grey and horrid world the nazis would have created and on the other it lets you wreak havoc and really enjoy yourself while you paint it red. And in the midst of it all is a really creative and even funny dialogue that’s often going through BJ’s head. He embodies the stereotypical muscular killing machine with a gritty past and a bloody future and yet he is so much more than the average protagonist in a game. He longs for love and a barbecue with his family, but he knows that will never be for him, it will never be his job to be a father or a husband. His calling in life is shootin’, stabbin’ stranglin’ nazis.

BJ is a sad character, but determined

The story is that of a man driven by everything that has gone wrong in the world, all the kids who have died fighting the nazi warmachine and most of all out of his need for revenge on the man who made the nazi victory possible, general Deathshead. From the 14 years in a coma the story moves to a prison breakout, to helping the resistance and finding old friends and even to the moon. It does a great job of finding new exciting locations to explore and fight in, and it does a great job of introducing characters and making you love them. What comes to mind is the story of Klaus and Max Hass, a nazi turned resistance fighter and a huge man with the mind of a little boy. Klaus lost his family and took Max under his wing, because what else could he do with a mentally retarded person in nazi Germany? The story of Max Hass is truly the most emotional a game has ever made me feel and that is a great accomplishment from a game like The New Order.


Shooting a gun in The New Order always feels really good, and when you see a nazi blow to bits after you put a bullet in him is always satisfying. It makes a point in not making the gunplay too difficult to be enjoyable and most enemies will be killed with a shot to the head or a few to the body. Where it does fail is in enemy variety. There are sadly very few versions of the normal nazi grunt, from what I can think of there are four or five of them, as well as an armoured version and the big bloody robots of which there are a few. But in the middle of battle it doesn’t matter how what you are killing looks like, as long as it is an enjoyable process, and it really is. There is little more satisfying than blowing your way through a bunch of soldiers dual wielding shotguns. The gunplay is almost childish in its execution but it works oh so well.

Gun variety is also very pleasing, as every gun has a second ability, at least after the prologue chapter. The assault rifle seconds as a rocket launcher, the sniper rifle seconds as a laser cannon (yay alternate reality!) and the Laserkraftwerk (a laser cannon) can be used to cut out pieces of metal, say fences. Other than these there is a pistol, a shotgun, knives and grenades.

Unlike so many other first person shooters, Wolfenstein only partially regenerates your health after you have been hurt, and it relies on the player finding food and health-kits as the health only will regenerate to the closest 20 health points. The player starts with 100 health points, but can overcharge the health by consuming said health-kits and food. The health will slowly drain away until it is back at the maximum level or under it, but this can still be useful if you want to play very offensively, or you are heavily outnumbered.

Yay, dual wielding shotguns!

Something that did surprise me in The New Order was the stealth, because it’s surprisingly good. There are one or two sections in which stealth is the only option, but other than that the game never holds your hand or tells you how to go about an objective. Being successful in your stealthing is another discussion entirely, but if you’re used to first person stealth games such as Dishonored or Thief you probably won’t have a problem with it. Something that did annoy me was that there were times where I was not sure whether an enemy had spotted me or not, there is no indicator other than gunfire and shouting, which in the stealth sections don’t really exist, because neither you or the guards are allowed guns.

All in all it’s a very enjoyable game, with fairly large areas to explore, lots and lots of hidden loot and multiple ways to go about your killing spree, whether you want to go on a rampage, sneakily kill the enemies one by one or a combination of the two. Remember to explore, because there are literally hundreds of collectibles, which can seem overwhelming, but it’s never forced on you and if you chose to collect, say all the enigma codes you will unlock new game modes to make any replays more interesting. Plus, who doesn’t like hunting nazi gold.

A sort of combination between a perk and an achievement system is also present, giving you improvements when perks are achieved, such as the throw knife ability you get after stabbing an enemy commander. However, some of these perks requirements feel very unnatural to obtain, like the Vampire perk you get after stabbing five enemies while overcharged on health, and while others are quite reasonable, it just feels some of them were quite lazy. However, the four perk trees, Stealth, Assault, Demolition and Tactical mean that every playthrough can go a bit differently, even if it’s far from impossible achieving all perks in a single game.

Make no mistake, it is a gory game

A certain choice in the beginning of the game will slightly alter the rest of it, basically creating two different timelines, so that alone creates replay value, but even without it I personally would have played through it more than once. Currently I’m on my third playthrough after playing through both the timelines on medium, now I am doing an ûber difficulty game and it feels just as fun as the first time I played it.

Deathshead is a really good antagonist

The graphics can at times be a bit underwhelming with poor textures and some poor optimisation, but from a distance it looks quite beautiful. Of course the beauty is undermined by the colour scheme, which essentially consists of grey and brown, but it makes sense in a nazi ruled world to have boring colours I guess. And as a contrast, the HQ of the resistance is more cheerfully coloured. Something I have noticed is that some of the larger areas seems to have a frequent texture popping which is really disappointing. Admittedly I’m not running the newest graphics card, but this really affects immersion, especially as the chapter in which I noticed it the most was a very emotional one.


The music feels so right, I don’t have a single bad thing to say about it. Every track fits perfectly into the scenes they are used in and even when you listen to them on their own they have an amazing sense of dread and despair, or alternatively hope if you listen to one of the more cheerful tracks. As well as the background music, a number of parodies of famous 60’s songs were made as they would have been in this alternate reality, such as Wilbert Eckhart und seine Volksmusik Stars with House of the Rising Stars.

At occasion BJ is hunted by an invincible Panzerhund

I heartily recommend playing this game. If you really dislike first person shooters it might be difficult to get into, and some might say it doesn’t hold your hand enough (at least from what I’ve read on the Steam forums) but personally this game was an amazing experience and as of yet my personal game of the year. If you have tried playing this game, and you’re not a completionist I suggest turning the difficulty down a bit though, just to make the gunplay more fun and let you run around more without fear of getting killed constantly.

[Sir Adrian]

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