Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014)

Don't know why I never thought to go back and review this one on here after I had finished replaying it loooong ago. I'm talking like, this review should have been written like November 2024 or something.

Anyway, great game. I truly do stand by that 5-star rating. I've revisited this one numerous times and it never fails. The right blend of over-the-top action, meta commentary, tongue-in-cheek humour, serious themes and good old fashioned Nazi-killing kick assery.

Mick Gordon's composing is stellar, BJ Blascowicz is a compelling protagonist, the story is well paced, the cut scenes are superbly directed, I love the off-kilter, quirk side characters and it's just overall, super well designed. The giant combat arenas, the boss battles, enemy and weapon variety, it's all here.

This Wolfenstein etry in the franchise delivers a compelling alternate-history story where the Nazis have won World War II. The MC is called B.J. Blazkowicz and his fight with the resistance, offering well-developed characters and emotional moments that give the campaign real weight. And this is a first in the series, which is a very oldschool shooter one, and most, if not all of them, back in the day, had zero to no focus in the characters and the story behind them.

The gameplay is satisfying, blending fast-paced gunfights with optional stealth mechanics. Combat is versatile, allowing different approaches, and the progression system rewards varied playstyles. The level design encourages exploration, and the campaign length is substantial for a single-player shooter. Although particularly speaking, most people, including myself, will choose the "guns blazing" approach, since a lot of the marketing behind this title had this as a focus, and it is a very satisfying approach, this game really makes you feel like a power-phantasy shooter.

Graphically, the game was impressive for its time, with detailed environments, smooth animations, and solid sound design that enhances immersion. Voice acting and music further strengthen the atmosphere, making the story and action feel more engaging. Some issues arise with inconsistent tone, as the game shifts between serious storytelling and over-the-top action, which can feel jarring.

Enemy AI and stealth mechanics have limitations, occasionally breaking immersion. Overall, it successfully modernizes the classic Wolfenstein formula, combining strong storytelling, satisfying combat, and high production values, making it a standout single-player FPS of its era. I highly recommend this game to anybody who likes shooters to any extent, it is a really amazing reboot to the franchise. And it is especially amazing for fans of the old titles since it has a lot of references, and even some secrets for you to enjoy.

Replayed it for the first time since release, and it might be one of the best story-driven FPS games I've ever played. The directing is excellent. I finished it on the max difficulty, and it was fairly easy except for two things—armored enemies with shotguns and the final boss fight. The final boss on max difficulty is the single worst experience I've ever had in a game. It almost made me quit entirely—absolutely annoying, frustrating, unfun, and downright awful.

The PC port is quite a mess, with limited graphical settings, awful anti-aliasing, and unremovable or unchangeable post-processing effects. The game can be silly at times but still tries to keep a straight face. Overall, it's a great game, but the only real downside is that you have to kill Nazis.

This is an excellent story-based single player FPS. I can't believe I missed this series back when it came out. It surprised me how good it is. It's kind of a mix between old school and new school FPS, it has the over the top action sequences of something like call of duty, but it's also got health packs and armor pickups. The action in the game is just overall very fun and enjoyable. There's a decent selection of weapons and all of them feel impactful, especially the unique laser weapon you can use not only for combat but also for exploration. There's not a huge amount of exploration, it's a linear game, but there's some small advantage to getting in secret rooms with some more resources that are always rewarding a needed. You have to manage your ammo and resources (health, armor) even on the normal mode so its not mindless. You can even choose to go for stealth or go for guns blazing in many of the scenarios, both being satisfying.

The gunplay was extremely satisfying as expected, however I really was surprised that the story is actually really good, and the characters interesting. I didn't expect to be as invested in the story, it was actually great.

The only negatives I had about the game were a few of the later levels, were a bit underwhelming. But overall a very underrated, excellent single player action FPS game.

Playtime: 1,5-2 hours

Intro

Wolfenstein 5000 is a linear FPS in which you sit through endless story elements before getting to cramped areas filled with enemies.

Review

I'm a life-long antifa and there are few things i enjoy more than killing Nazis. So it's impressive how quickly this managed to bore. There's almost no freedom to explore, enemies respawn if an officer knows you're there and the dull story nonsense is endless. The actual shooting is fine but overall combat is just so limited. Gameplay in general is just so incredibly dated. This came out 10 years after Half-Life 2 but can't even begin to compare to the first Half-Life from back in '98. What a disappointment.

There's a character you meet a few levels into the game that seems perfectly set up to be your classic action movie traitor. He's grumpy, doesn't get along with anybody, and is the key to executing the mission. And then...he executes the mission.

This is why I'm serious when I say what I like about Wolfenstein: The New Order is that it's just a fun, wholesome game about good people killin' Nazis. Though clearly influenced by action movie tropes, at no point do any of the characters so perfectly set up to betray you—the love interest that could so easily be a femme fatale, the former Nazi, the man who resents you for saving him, the woman who believes only in logic and order, the brilliant and cynical inventor—at no point do any of these walking, talking narrative time bombs actually betray you. There's no twist, there's no nuance, there's no "morality is complicated." They're just good people. Killin' evil Nazis.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for stories that complexify morality and humanize the supposed villains and whatnot. But, especially these days, it is refreshing to find a piece of media that is just so uncompromisingly anti-Nazi.

And it is specifically killing Nazis the game is in favor, not just killing generally. All of the characters are clearly affected by the violence they're forced to commit (even Caroline and Set, though in their case it's more about how it's hardened them), and the game makes it very clear that in a Nazi-free world they would much prefer, you know, not killing people.

That being said, the killing Nazis part is pretty fun. All of the weapons are satisfying to play with (though, for how unrealistic the range and accuracy on the silenced pistol is, you'd think they could have been more generous with aiming the throwing knives), and there's enough variation between run-and-gun, cover-shooting, and stealth to keep fights interesting. The action movie trappings (in particular the "this is how it's gonna go-down" montages before each mission) really help give each level its own personality and make you feel like each one matters and isn't just some arbitrary set dressing (which can be the feeling of some action games). And while I never really felt like the collectibles were worth it (I never completed even one of the Enigma Codes, and I have not idea what solving them even means), there are enough other reasons to go exploring corners and cracking open crates (weapon upgrades, heath pickups when you really need them, etc.) that it didn't feel like a waste of time to do so (especially before the final bossfight, when I geared up and then sprinted around the arena gathering all the health pickups so that I was at ~350 when I started the fight).

So, yeah, good game. Knows exactly what it's doing and does it well. And what it's doing is killin' Nazis.

p.s. Also playing the classic Wolfenstein level but as BJ was delightfully goofy, and an excellent way to grind for perks.

p.p.s. Those shotgun soldiers are the absolute worst. Bullet-sponges that never stop firing and can hit around cover? I'll take a giant mech thank you very much, at least those dudes have phases.

p.p.p.s. I just want to reiterate, for no particular reason, that the message of this game is not "Nazis are people too and this is a really complex and difficult situation, morally-speaking."

LIT ON THE SPOT - REVIEW

Developed by MachineGames, Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game of extremes that goes from brilliant narrative moments of action and character development to some absolutely boring and shallow ones in a matter of seconds. Its level design suffers from the same problem, sometimes being inventive, sometimes being limited and repetitive. It is a FPS with good and bad ideas and the end result reflects this inconsistency.

The plot begins with this franchise old protagonist, Captain William B. J. Blazkowicz, on a desperate mission to defeat the Nazi army in 1946. In the story, Germany has mysteriously acquired technology too advanced for its time and is using it to turn the balance of war in their favor. The captain’s objective is to infiltrate the castle of the scientist Deathshead and kill him, eliminating one of the main figures responsible for controlling and improving the new weaponry. His team, however, ends up failing in their mission and being caught, and Blazkowicz himself is wounded in the head. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a hospital, many years after the battle, when the Nazis had already won the World War II.

The narrative moves fast from there. Fleeing from the hospital with one of the female employees, Blazkowicz attempts to locate a resistance group so that he can return immediately to the fight. Fighting, by the way, is one of the main elements that define the character. It is no wonder that it is during a moment of brutality, when soldiers are gunning doctors and patients in front of him, that the captain awakens from his apparent coma: what moves Blazkowicz is violence and the desire to kill his enemies.

The protagonist faithfully represents the inconsistency of the game, ranging from boring cliché to surprising complexity. On the one hand, Blazkowicz is your typical FPS protagonist: the big athletic white man of few words that boasts a hoarse voice and a tendency to enjoy violence. His thoughts – which come up almost like whispers during the levels – develops this side of him, painting Blazkowicz as a “badass” that has gone through a lot in life and has become stronger with it.

On the other hand, there are scenes when he shows a lot of vulnerability: his unshakable appearance is revealed to be a mask, which is always removed when the violence becomes overwhelming. The climax of the first level, though cliché, works precisely by showing Blazkowicz completely lost, not knowing how to act, feeling helpless before the events.

More important, however, is the fact that the game recognizes that the protagonist could very well have been fighting for the Nazis. His blue-eyed biotype clearly fits the concept of the superior Aryan race advocated by German officials. This is important not only because it serves as comment on the current state of the FPS genre – Nazis would love this genre’s typical protagonists – but also because it develops Blazkowicz a bit more.

A counterpoint will make that last point clearer: one of the resistance members working with Blazkowicz is a retired Nazi who switched sides when his son was born with a deformity and had to be sacrificed for the sake of the purity his race. Therefore, the character changed sides not because he felt it was right, but because he stopped being benefited by one of them and now wants revenge. Blazkowicz, on the other hand, confronts the Nazis because he simply understands that they are horrible monsters: even though being someone who would have greatly benefited from the Nazi regime, he opposes it on principle.

The Nazis themselves is yet another element worked in an uneven way in The New Order. The two major antagonists of the game are sadistic and abominable creatures, who take pleasure in torturing people and have no redeemable traits. Nazis are often portrayed in narratives as absolutely evil and monstrous, in a pattern that has unfortunately proved insufficient to alert people to the cruelty of their ideology. On the other hand, Blazkowicz usually find German letters during the levels that show multifaceted individuals who, despite defending a racist and violent ideology, still show signs of still being human: one of the first letters found, for example, is written by an officer who, on a trip to Africa, after a violent encounter with those he calls “savages”, reflects on the horrors of war, laments his decision to become a military man and expresses concern and love for his beloved. The Nazi here is portrayed as a person: a horrible person, without doubt, but still a person.

This is actually a pattern in The New Order: character development is more layered in optional letters and secondary audios than in the main story. One of the most fascinating figures in game, the nurse Ramona, for instance, appears only in audios narrated by Blazkowicz’ romantic pair, Anya. Whilst Anya’s development is almost non-existent during the cutscenes – she likes the protagonist because “why not” and fight the Nazi because “hell yes” – Ramona is shown to have moral conflicts and dilemmas and even idiosyncrasies in her way of speaking: she always cynically “discovers” a particularity of the Nazis to murder them with it. It is a tragic character who recognizes the complexities of the situation in which she finds herself and who does not hesitate to do what she can to help everyone. Spoilers until the end of the paragraph: the audios open the possibility that Ramona is only a persona of Anya, and that the events described with the nurse have therefore actually occurred to her, which does not change the fact that all the development takes place through these secondary audios and not during the main cutscenes.

These cutscenes, however, deserve applause for its surprisingly witty editing that employs several visual match cuts to accelerate time: one of the most inspired ones has the scenery suddenly change from a room on a train to one in a hotel during the movement of the characters, putting them in their next destination in a split second.

With some strong moments of social criticism – the systematic and institutional racism of pre and post War America makes a black character compare them to Nazis in a scene of pure revolt –, The New Order oscillates between being socially relevant and completely innocuous.

The game’s level design follows suit. For every provocative and ambitious level, like the one staged in a concentration camp, there is a bit of filler, like all the moments that take place in the sewers of a resistance base, which do not develop a single remarkable mechanic or idea. The levels themselves are divided into combat arenas interconnected by corridors and stairs. Players have at their disposal a vast arsenal and can even wield two weapons at the same time. But then there is the always present contradiction: The New Order normally encourages an active stance, putting the player always on the move, either with destructible covers or with an AI programmed to flank. But, in contrast, the game is also rife with sponge-like enemies that can quickly dispatch you with massive laser weapons, which ends up stimulating a defensive approach, with the player avoiding leaving cover.

In addition, the game offers a simple stealth approach that involves three options: shooting with a silencer, throwing a knife or performing a takedown when approaching an enemy silently when crouched. The problem is that Wolfenstein is not Deus Ex: the levels are not designed in a way as that enables the player to do everything silently: stealth is not an alternative but only a complement. There are enemies absolutely immune to this approach and levels in which shooting everyone very loudly is mandatory. In the highest difficulties, it is advisable to kill the so-called “commanders” silently to avoid reinforcements, but the function of stealth ends there.

Finally, a point where The New Order gets very right is the character’s progression system, which works hand in hand with the way players express themselves in the battlefield: it unlocks new skills and upgrades as the player performs certain actions. This way, using a specific weapon too much increases its capacity while acting stealthily increases the movement speed when crouched. The progression system here is an organic one, being built from the player’s own actions, and avoids falling into abstractions such as experience points.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game with a lot of ups and downs. Its narrative oscillates between fascinating scenes and tedious ones, while its level design offers combat arenas that are designed for long and intense shoot-outs, but then fill them with enemies that usually drive the player into a corner. In the end, it’s a game marked by its unevenness.

I absolutely adore this game. I truly do, not just because it's near perfect in narrative and gameplay design, but also based on the mere fact that they managed it all within the confines of a Wolfenstein reboot, of all things. The gunplay is extremely satisfying, with visual feedback and sound design created by the gods themselves, while also supplying a slight pang of guilt with every downed Nazi, since the exploration sections are littered with letters, newspaper clippings and visual storytelling, depicting these usually straightforwardly evil antagonists as simply fellow humans, caught up in a conflict they did not ask to be involved in. This not only elicits a pretty strong emotion from the player, but it also works as a beautifully organic method of worldbuilding. It's a brave approach to this potentially taboo setting, but it's delivered with such unbelievable confidence that it never comes off as preachy or apologetic to the atrocities orchestrated by your enemies. There may well be innocent casualties in this fight, but there are still some unapologetically evil villains. Deathshead, Frau Engel, and some select unnamed soldiers commit such horrific acts of cruelty and violence, reminding the player that through the somewhat pulpy, B-movie tone, the Nazis are still a very real threat and need to be brought to justice by your hand. This makes killing the higher-up Nazi officers feel all the more satisfying. Your character is weak if caught out in the open, so the game encourages playing cautiously, moving between covers only when you actually can, finding new routes around each arena for the most efficient run possible. Gunplay requires thought, which makes overcoming each encounter feel absolutely brilliant. You really get the sense that you've overcome exceptional odds and it's great every time. Unfortunately, some level-end miniboss fights are often quite easy since the challenge of The New Order tends to originate from dealing with large groups of weak enemies, but I'd take engaging minute-to-minute combat with forgettable boss encounters any day over the reverse alternative. Stealth is incredibly satisfying too, throwing in clever music cues and wonderful gun sound. While the silenced pistol probably has entirely overpowered range and firing from the hip often bizarrely means greater accuracy, the pros definitely outweigh the cons here.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game that shouldn't exist. It's a reboot of an old FPS franchise that only really had to be an extremely well-made but mindless arena shoot-em-up like its 2016 brother Doom. However, MachineGames did what nobody asked for and went the extra mile, setting the bar for exceptional world building and gunplay design, and I absolutely thank them for that. They took this comically goofy premise of a WW2 shooter where you fight MechaHitler, and transformed it into a profound, introspective study of the traditionally heroic video game tough guy protagonist. BJ Blazkovics remains my favourite FPS protag in gaming history, and I'm excited to see how they continue developing him in the next instalment of this wonderful franchise.

9/10

New Order ups the ante that was set by Wolfenstein 09' before it and adds a significant layer of storytelling and worldbuilding that accompanies the improved and extra-challenging gameplay before it.

Taking place 14 years after the Nazis win the war, BJ Blazkowicz breaks out of his coma and struggles to join the last resistance against a world gone mad. That said, his character isn't the best (think Shadow the Hedgehog levels of edgy) but every character and plot point around him, good or evil, shines. Frau Engel and her boy toy are sinister positions of authority that will stop at nothing to push BJ under their boots. The resistance is filled with members that question their lives, turn over leaves, and come together for the only world they have left to fight for. It's a supreme level of characterization over the previous games.

Gameplay is a little less on the fun side, however, as the game ups its challenging factor by bringing back health and amping the difficulty, especially on harder difficulties. The player will have to utilize every dual-wielded weapon, every secondary fire mode, and every temporary method of exotic weaponry at their disposal. The biggest improvements, however, are the laser weaponry (a mere fence-cutter that turns into a laser-guided sniper of death by the end) and stealth that actually feels meaningful and not as frustrating. The player can crouch and sneak up on enemies and take them out in a stealthy fashion to save ammo and avoid alarms, and getting caught just means getting into a firefight. Design tends to go between firefights and stealth very smoothly.

The world also takes center stage - a Germany that is incredibly technically advanced for 1960 (with a moon base?!) but also cold and unfeeling. Tragedy can be felt at every corner of a world controlled by Nazis and the futuristic tech is delicious at the player's fingertips, whether it be a trip to the moon or a bomb of twisting wires. The music is about as impressive as BJ's personality, but it doesn't get in the way of satisfying combat sounds.

The New Order is a tough order, but makes up for it with very improved gameplay and a story that grimly reminds us of what it means to fight the Nazis, all while having its own crazy retrofuturistic fun. Let's hope the sequel brings a better BJ to accompany this brave new world.

I absolutely adore this series. The characters, the backdrop of this Nazi controlled world, the super-fun dual wielding mechanic. It’s just so much fun. The level design is diverse and the story takes you all around the globe (and off it) and the characters you meet on the way are all interesting and unique. The gameplay is a throwback to games of old with armour and health needing to be picked up. The gunplay is fun and the game even provides some replayability with the choice between 2 different characters at the start. Also the soundtrack is insanely good. Mick Gordon not only made a great score but also created a bunch of Nazified classic music. There is so much world-building in the music alone, and that’s ignoring the hundreds of newspaper clippings and letters you’ll find strewn throughout the game.

Also, God-damn Jimi Hendrix is in this game. need I say more?

9/10

Wolfenstein: The New Order is a very enjoyable first person adventure that blends solid shooting, surprisingly interesting characters, a unique take on WWII, and some stealth. The gameplay isn't perfect, and I'd say that's one of two things holding it back from its full potential. The other being some disconnection between the levels, which we'll get into later.

Wolfenstein has some solid gunplay, suffering a little from a lack in modern scopes and tech for many guns. If you've played some WWII-era games maybe this isn't an issue for you, but I haven't played a game with iron sights since the original Medal of Honor. However, they compensate for your shitty iron sights in a big way: Hip firing is super accurate. You're able to mow down Nazis with little recoil, and land headshots farther away than you'd expect just by firing from the hip. This made one of the game's most fun aspects, dual wielding assault rifles, very fun and energetic. Just blast through a room cutting a path through your enemies with little problem. Well, some of the time. The difficulty level isn't too low that you can just waltz in and take an entire battle arena. There are some enemies that spike the difficulty, sometimes in frustrating ways. This is the only thing that really irked me about the gameplay. Some units, like the armored shotgun-wielding enemies are hard to kill and hard to confront. Their shots can really do a number, and there had been plenty of frustrating times where I was just about to clear a room, but the last remaining shotgun guy blew my head off. Those moments aren't too frequent, though, and I still had a great time playing.

Because almost no modern game can escape a light RPG style progression system (something I actually don't mind) the way in which you beef up your main character, B.J. Blazcowicz, is a ton of fun. You can become more proficient at certain aspects of the combat by doing challenges. Kill 75 enemies using dual wielding guns and your reload speed increases. Get 50 stealth takedowns and enemies will drop health upon death. That brings us to the stealth. It's actually a surprisingly large part of the game. When you're put in a new area most of the time you get some freedom to stalk around and silently kill enemies. This makes it a lot easier when you inevitably trigger an alarm. You'll have less enemies to deal with. And it's a lot of fun, too. Creeping around stabbing dudes and all. Most areas have one or two commander types. If you kill them, then reinforcements can't come and help. It gives you a good goal, and it's a blast to find and take them down as a sort of stealth combat puzzle. But if that's not your thing shooting Nazis the traditional way works, too.

One of the pockmarks on the game mechanically is the needless button-pressing. Ammo, health and armor pickups litter the ground of the game and each requires a button press to pick up. There were certainly times where, in the middle of a huge battle, I'd be scrambling for ammo or armor, mashing the X button for pickups. I even once accidentally skipped a cutscene because of my frantic button mashing. I can't imagine why they wouldn't have these be auto-pickups. The health, maybe I can see. Perhaps you mean to use the overload mechanic (if you gain health over your max it is temporary, and decays quickly) strategically. But ammo? There's never a moment where you wouldn't want ammo or armor, and forcing a button press does get a little annoying.

There's one aspect to the game that I found both a blessing and a curse. The levels can be very disconnected. You finish up your tasks in London, after some story, you're in a submarine in Poland. Once that's done, some story ensues and you find yourself somewhere else. I really liked how it didn't dwell on the travel. Who cares that you say on a wagon for 14 days? But sometimes the disconnect was very large and jarring. There was one moment where I thought “Wait...what country am I in?”

I was really surprised at how good the characters were. The story follows BJ Blazcowicz, an American who is part of a resistance movement during WWII. In this universe the Nazis have some kind of advanced tech that makes them unbeatable. So they won the war. American surrendered. It makes a really interesting take on the topic, and some of the tech fits well with the grim tone. BJ, while a Nazi-killing beefcake, actually had some kind of development. He just wants to be at home, BBQing with his (not yet existent) wife and kids. Also, Max Hass. Max. Hass.

I had a way better time than I had expected with Wolfenstein: The New Order. Instead of a simple run-n-gun, I was given a deeper, more varied experience that had me glued to the TV. Pick it up, it's cheap enough now.

I usually don't enjoy this type of first-person shooter, but look, it's 2018 and sometimes I just want to punch a Nazi still, and Richard Spencer isn't readily available for my face-punching needs. Having heard great things about this original and its sequel, I figured I'd pick up Wolfenstein: The New Order and give it a chance. Turns out this update to the Wolfenstein franchise might very well be one of my favorite reboots of a classic video game franchise.

Wolfenstein: The New Order makes such simple leaps forward from what I usually expect from a FPS - likely thanks to Bethesda - that make this feel far more than just shooting random people. For example, you play an actual character, instead of a nonspeaking, blank slate of a person. There might not be much to B.J. Blazkowicz, but still having a FPS star a character with SOME character feels like a tremendous step in the right direction.

Also with most FPS, I tend to pick weapons I enjoy using, then stick with them for the majority of the game. Wolfenstein however places achievements that not only give you great benefits, but make you want to play outside your usual wheelhouse. Again, it's such a small choice, but it's one that opened up this style of gameplay in a way I hadn't expected before.

For a PFS, Wolfenstein: The New Order also has quite a solid story that blends complete fantasy with the utter horrors of WWII. It's still unnerving when you have to escape a Nazi death camp, but the additions of robot Nazis and mechanized dogs don't feel unnatural, but rather, an intriguing theory on there the Nazis might've gone had they not been stopped, a gradual progression of the horrific acts the Nazis were capable of. Wolfenstein finds just the right combination of historical ideas and theorizing fantasy that I really took to. It's strange that watching a Jimi Hendrix stand in play the National Anthem while he gets shot by Nazis hit me hard, but it did. Wolfenstein: The New Order never feels like it's making light of the Nazis, but always makes its take fun, in its own way.

Wolfenstein: The New Order's simple but effective ways of adding story, character and gameplay innovations make this a surprisingly great return for this franchise. It's as if Wolfenstein took everything I didn't like about generic FPS and turned those problems into strengths. A solid return for Wolfenstein that turns it into something greater and more prescient than I think any of us could've imagined this series would've been back in the 90s.

This is my introduction to the Wolfenstein franchise, but I think this is a reboot? So I'm ok? Anyway there's something special here but it gets buried a lot under the difficult, clunky nature of the gameplay. I was getting some heavy Bioshock Infinite vibes in terms of hyper violent fps action getting in the way of good writing and interesting gameplay solutions. I felt like I was shooting my way out of every situation right when things could have gotten interesting. There is a place for that sort of game, but I didn't feel like gameplay and story were quite married in a harmonious way. I have lots of hype for the next one, it seems like some lessons were learned and it will be much more character and writing based.

Some good things: the level design and overall world was really cool to explore, obviously Jimi Hendrix, even if he was underutilized, and the audio logs from Anya throughout the game really ended up having a pretty emotional arc to them.