It’s been a long time since the 1981 release of Castle Wolfenstein, and Bethesda in conjunction with MachineGames are bringing the latest in the series, Wolfenstein: The New Order to us next month. I recently had the chance to play the first three hours of the game.
The game starts on July 16th 1946 (yes 1946), and B.J. Blazkowicz (you) is on a plane on a last ditch mission to destroy Deathshead and his army. Your plane is hit and you have to perform a small series of tasks to stop the plane from exploding, and before you know it you are sitting in a gun turret shooting futuristic looking planes out of the sky. I wont spoil the start of the game but you have to jump between two planes in the air, survive a plane crash, swim underwater, and assault a beach in a scene reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan.
You have various missions to complete, from assaulting the compound, to disabling some heavy guns, all the while being attacked from all angles by Nazi’s, dogs and even robotic machines.
It’s about an hour to an hour and a half of gameplay then before you finish the sequence in 1946, and in fact that’s when the title sequence for the game starts, so think of the whole of the 1946 game as the pre-title sequence.
Something happens to Blazkowicz during that game sequence that then has him waking up in Poland in 1960. The Nazi’s have won the war, the world is under their thumb, and it’s time for Blazkowicz to fight back. He has to escape his current situation, rescue a nurse called Anya and try to find out where the Nazi’s are holding what’s left of the resistance (something he does during a cinematic torture scene involving a chainsaw!).
Before I knew it my 3 hours were up, with Blazkowicz ending up on a train full of Nazi’s having just played a rather strange game with a rather unlikeable woman and her boy toy!
The graphics are very good, with lots of exploding body parts and showers of blood, all rendered with Software’s id Tech 5 engine. The gameplay was very smooth as well considering how many things were happening on the screen at once in terms of explosions and characters.
There is a lot of use of cover in the game, with you being able to lean around columns to see and attack your enemies, to shooting through things at floor level – it all makes for some interesting gameplay.
I have been lucky enough to play two previous builds at closed door events and the game gets better and better, and harder!
Talking of which, there are 5 difficulty levels, and good luck with the hardest one!
One thing that is brand new for this build is the new perk system. Like other games, you can earn perks to enhance your abilities. The way you earn these perks is to perform certain tasks, such as perform a silent kill on an enemy. This will then unlock a certain perk from the four perk trees – Stealth, Tactical, Assault and Demolition. You also don’t have to perform the tasks in sequence to unlock the perk which I thought was good.
There is also a map in the game, although the map is only revealed as you make your way through the levels, unless of course you happen to find a map laying around somewhere, in which case you can see more!
There are also a lot, and I mean a lot of collectables to find in the game, including codes and Nazi gold, each of which opens up background information to read. During my 3 hours I managed to find a few, and way told after I had finished that I had in fact missed several that were hidden around. And as you would expect there are also secret passages, hidden rooms, and lots of surprises.
One thing I really liked about my time with Wolfenstein: The New Order was that I could choose to play the game using stealth or I could just go full out and shoot everything that moves. There are missions where you have to get through to a certain area that can either be done using stealth, including quietly killing the enemy or even leaving them alone, or you could just go in all guns blazing, which I have to be honest is exactly what I did most times – who doesn’t want to dual wield some heavy machines guns! There are also different routes to get to your objectives – some of which are only available to you depending on certain decisions you make. For example, there is a sequence in the 1946 area where you are captured by Deathshead and you need to decide which of your two friends dies. Depending on who you choose, the story will subtly change which certain skills being taught to you by the survivor thus helping you later. I won’t spoil it but it was a nice little touch that I didn’t realise until much later in the gameplay.
I mentioned dual wielding machine guns – there are lots of different weapons in Wolfenstein: The New Order, ranging from knives, to pistols, to turret guns. Pretty much all the weapons (with the exception of the turret gun) can be dual wielded, which really unleashes hell on your enemies. Just remember though, you burn through your ammo quicker that way!
I look forward to playing more of Wolfenstein: The New Order soon.
Here is some gameplay footage to keep you going as well:
Last year I also spoke with Andreas, one of the level designers about Wolfenstein: The New Order:
Wolfenstein: The New Order will be released on May 20th for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC.
Are you going to play it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Comments are closed.