The game is played from a first-person perspective and most of its levels are navigated on foot. The story is arranged in chapters, which players complete in order to progress. A morality choice in the prologue alters the game’s storyline; some characters and small plot points are replaced throughout the two timelines. The game features a variety of weapons, most of which can be dual wielded. A cover system is present.
Development began in 2010, soon after id Software gave MachineGames the rights for the franchise. The development team envisioned Wolfenstein: The New Order as a first-person action-adventure game, taking inspiration from previous games in the series and particularly focusing on the combat and adventure elements. The game attempts to delve into character development of Blazkowicz, unlike its predecessors—a choice from the developers to interest players in the story. They aimed to portray him in a heroic fashion.
At release, Wolfenstein: The New Order received generally positive reviews, with praise particularly directed at the combat and the narrative of the game. Critics considered it a positive change to the series and nominated it for multiple year-end accolades, including Game of the Year and Best Shooter awards from several gaming publications. A stand-alone expansion, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, was released in May 2015 and is set before the events of the game. A sequel, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, was released in October 2017.
Gameplay
Wolfenstein: The New Order is an action-adventure and first-person shooter video game played from a first-person perspective. To progress through the story, players fight enemies throughout levels.[1] The game utilizes a health system in which health is divided into separate sections that regenerate; if an entire section is lost, players must use a health pack to replenish the missing health.[2]
Players may take cover behind objects during firefights, using it as a tactical advantage and to avoid taking damage from enemies.
Players use melee attacks, firearms, and explosives to fight enemies, and may run, jump, and occasionally swim to navigate through the locations. Melee attacks can be used to silently take down enemies without being detected. Alternatively, players can ambush enemies, which often results in an intense firefight between the two parties.[3]
A cover system can be used in combat as assistance against enemies. Players have the ability to lean around, over, and under cover, which can be used as a tactical advantage during shootouts and stealth levels.[4] The game gives players a wide variety of weapon options; they can be found on the ground, retrieved from dead enemies, or removed from their stationary position and carried around.[5] Weapon ammunition must be manually retrieved from the ground or from dead enemies.[6] Players have access to a weapon inventory, which allows them to carry as many weapons as they find. With some of these weapons, players have the ability to dual wield, giving them an advantage over enemies by dealing twice as much damage.[3] Players can customize weapons through the use of upgrades; for example, a rocket launcher can be attached to the side of an assault rifle, and a wire cutting tool can be upgraded to a laser gun.[7]
Plot
The Nazis have deployed advanced technologies, enabling them to turn the tide against the Allies. In July 1946, U.S. special forces operative Captain William “B.J.” Blazkowicz (Brian Bloom), accompanied by pilot Fergus Reid (Gideon Emery) and Private Probst Wyatt III (A.J. Trauth), take part in a massive Allied air raid against a fortress and weapons laboratory run by his nemesis, SS-Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer Wilhelm “Deathshead” Strasse (Dwight Schultz). The three are captured and brought to a human experimentation laboratory where Deathshead forces Blazkowicz to choose who he will gruesomely kill, Fergus or Wyatt, before leaving Blazkowicz and the survivor to die in the laboratory’s emergency incinerator.[8] They escape the laboratory, but Blazkowicz suffers a critical head injury during the escape, rendering him unconscious and putting him in a coma. He is brought to a psychiatric asylum in Poland, where he remains in a vegetative state for 14 years from which he is unable to awaken. He is cared for by the asylum’s head nurse Anya Oliwa (Alicja Bachleda) and her parents, who run the facility under the Nazi regime. Blazkowicz watches as Anya’s parents are regularly forced to hand patients over to Nazi authorities, who deem them Untermenschen for their mental disabilities and take them to General Strasse for unknown experimentation.[9]
In 1960, fourteen years after Blazkowicz’s admission, the Nazis ordered that the asylum is to be shut down, killing all the patients and executing Anya’s family when they resist. Blazkowicz awakens from his vegetative state as he is about to be executed, killing the extermination squad and escaping the asylum with Anya.[9] Blazkowicz and Anya drive to her grandparents’ farm, where they inform him that the Nazis won the war by forcing the United States to surrender in 1948 and that the members of the ensuing Resistance were captured. Blazkowicz interrogates a captured officer from the asylum, learning that the top members of the Resistance are imprisoned in Berlin before executing him with a chainsaw. Anya’s grandparents smuggle her and Blazkowicz through a checkpoint in Stettin before they travel to Berlin. During the train ride, Blazkowicz and Anya enter into a romantic relationship.[10] When they arrive, Anya helps Blazkowicz break into the prison, where he rescues the person he spared fourteen years prior (Fergus or Wyatt)[11] and finds that the Resistance movement is a revived Kreisau Circle led by Caroline Becker (Bonita Friedericy), who was left paralyzed due to her injuries at Isenstadt.[12]
The Resistance execute an attack on a Nazi research facility in London, bombing their base of operations, stealing secret documents and prototype stealth helicopters.[13] The documents reveal the Nazis are relying on reverse-engineered technology derived from an ancient organization known as Da’at Yichud, which created such inventions as energy weapons, computer artificial intelligence, and super concrete; however, it is revealed that someone is tampering with the super concrete’s formula, making it susceptible to mold deterioration. The Resistance discover a match with Da’at Yichud member Set Roth (Mark Ivanir), who is imprisoned in a forced labor camp.[14] Blazkowicz agrees to go undercover inside the camp and meets Set, who tells him that the Nazis have been using technology made by him and other Jewish scientists to mass-produce and control robots, and offers to help the Resistance in return for the destruction of the labor camp. Blazkowicz finds a battery for a device that controls the camp robots, which he and Set then use to destroy the camp and rescue prisoners.[15]
Set reveals to the Resistance that the Nazis’ discovery of one of the Da’at Yichud caches, which included advanced technology centuries ahead of its time, is what allowed Germany to surpass the Allies in military might and ultimately win the war. Set agrees to assist the Resistance by revealing the location of one such cache, but states that the Resistance requires a U-boat to access it.[16] Blazkowicz obtains a U-boat, but discovers that it is the flagship of the Nazis’ submarine fleet, and is equipped with a cannon designed to fire nuclear warheads, which requires codes from the Nazi lunar research facility to operate.[17] Blazkowicz uses the technology found in the Da’at Yichud cache, namely the Spindly Torque—a sphere that destroys the super concrete—to steal the identity of a Nazi lunar scientist and infiltrate the Lunar Base.[18] He succeeds at obtaining the codes, but upon returning to Earth, he discovers that Deathshead has mounted an assault on the Resistance base, capturing some of the members.[19]
The Resistance use the nuclear codes and the Spindly Torque to mount an assault on Deathshead’s compound. Rescuing the captured resistance prisoners and evacuating them, Blazkowicz makes it to the top of the tower, struggling to Deathshead’s workshop. Inside, Deathshead greets Blazkowicz, revealing to him that he possesses the brain of the soldier that Blazkowicz chose to die, and puts it in a robot. The robot comes alive and assaults Blazkowicz, who defeats it and puts his friend to rest by destroying the brain. Commandeering a larger robot mecha, Deathshead attacks Blazkowicz, who gets the upper hand and destroys the robot, dragging Deathshead out of it. He repeatedly stabs Deathshead, who pulls out a grenade which explodes, killing Deathshead and mauling Blazkowicz. As a gravely wounded Blazkowicz crawls towards a window, he mentally recites “The New Colossus” as he watches the Resistance survivors boarding a helicopter, alongside Anya and Set. Seeing that they have reached safety, and bleeding heavily from his injuries, Blazkowicz orders the Resistance to fire the nuclear cannon.[20] After the credits, a helicopter is heard approaching.[5]
Development
After developer MachineGames was founded, the employees began brainstorming ideas, and pitching them to publishers. In June 2009, MachineGames owner ZeniMax Media acquired id Software and all of its property, including Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein. Bethesda Softworks, who had previously declined a pitch from MachineGames, suggested that they develop a new game from a franchise acquired by ZeniMax. MachineGames inquired about developing a new game in the Wolfenstein series; the studio visited id Software, who approved of MachineGames’ request for a new Wolfenstein game. By November 2010, paperwork was signed, allowing MachineGames to develop Wolfenstein: The New Order.[21] Preliminary development lasted approximately three years.[22]
The existence of Wolfenstein: The New Order was first acknowledged by Bethesda Softworks on 7 May 2013, through the release of an announcement trailer.[23] Prior to this, Bethesda teased the upcoming project by releasing three images with the caption “1960”.[24] Though originally due for release in late 2013, the game was delayed to 2014 in order for the developers to further “polish” the game.[25] In February 2014, it was announced that The New Order would launch on 20 May 2014 in North America, on 22 May 2014 in Australia, and on 23 May 2014 in Europe.[26] The Australian and European release dates were later pushed forward, resulting in a worldwide launch on 20 May 2014.[27] All pre-orders of the game granted the purchaser an access code to the Doombeta, developed by id Software.[28] In accordance with Strafgesetzbuch section 86a, the German release of The New Order had all Nazi symbols and references were removed.[29] The German software ratings board, Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle, later introduced the “social adequacy clause”, which allowed the use of such imagery in relevant scenarios, reviewed on a case-by-case basis.[30] Bethesda made the uncensored international version, which lacks German as a language option, available for purchase in Germany on 22 November 2019, while continuing to sell the censored and localised version separately.[30] Following the game’s release, MachineGames began developing Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, a standalone expansion pack set before the events of The New Order. It was released in May 2015.
