Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

The ending of Wolfenstein: The New Order may have seemed like the end for Mr. Blazkowicz too. But while his injuries were grievous indeed, B.J. is back on his feet soon enough to again kill scores of them "white-ass Nazi bastards".

Another story-heavy title in the series

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus has mixed user reviews on Steam. It's hard for me to tell why. Many big releases these days get a negative reception initially if there's something even remotely wrong but then it evens out as time passes. Not in this case, however.

Some players seem to have criticized gameplay features, such as confusing level design -- which it definitely is at times. The New Colossus is very similar to its predecessor and the continuing stealth sections, for instance, still are too slow for others' liking.

The story and characters also instill negative opinions and I reckon they might be the main reason for persisting mixed score. Some even see the game too forcefully pushing a political agenda. The full rainbow spectrum of characters reeks the political atmosphere of Sweden (where MachineGames is based in) but I'd say the cast fits the narrative and doesn't feel forced.

Maybe at times MachineGames stepped too far into ridiculousness, though, like with the introduction of the antagonist's overweight daughter, or a senile Adolf Hitler etc. Getting engulfed in complete farce is close a bit too often. Regardless, I found the story highly entertaining.

Pre-recorded cutscenes are particularly well directed. I feel MachineGames was aiming at Quentin Tarantino's style in them. They are amusing, no doubt, but if a game's best moments are in non-interactive bits, is it a success or failure?

The New Colossus's main cast has superb voice acting but the minor characters that hang around in your submarine home base aren't as convincing. The Finnish one, Ritva Tuomivaara, was a source of serious cringe for me, a complete immersion breaker. Her voice actress, Kati Outinen, said in an interview she was allowed to alter and insert her own ideas into some of the lines. I don't think that was a good thing. Ritva's Finnish swearing and how she mixes English and Finnish don't sound natural at all. On top of that, the subtitles have more than one Finnish word misspelled.

Gameplay largely unchanged

The New Colossus runs on the newer id Tech engine like Doom (2016) which is great. I didn't have any technical issues like with the two earlier titles of the series and it looks better. You can even save the game yourself this time and you probably want to remember to do so if you revisit areas. Checkpoints seem to be scarcer outside main missions.

Perk system returns similar to the previous games, your progress again persisting through death and reloads. And again some of the perks are annoying to unlock, requiring grinding. I don't see anyone getting the hostile grenade kills perk while playing casually. The grenade indicator is so poor that all you might see is a flash of it and wonder what it was. And even when standing right on top of the thrown grenade to see the indicator again, it doesn't tell you which button to press to throw it back.

I played on the default difficulty this time. I predicted that enemies would again oddly become spongier towards the end and I wouldn't enjoy it that much on a higher setting. I was right. While a single headshot from a rifle on an unaware armored enemy was still lethal, in open combat head hitboxes became mysteriously more difficult to hit. I enjoyed the early game much more with its softer enemies.

At one point The New Colossus makes you choose from three different contraptions. The choice mostly changes through which holes in walls you progress. The ram shackles are probably the most fun one as they allow you to splatter enemies by running through them. You also eventually get all the gadgets if you keep doing the assassination side missions.

I feel somewhat invested in the series now and I will probably check out the following titles too as they come out. I do hope MachineGames innovates and adds more new features, though. More futuristic tech in weapons and gadgets, maybe. More customization and different character builds to add replay value.

Updated 2019-01-02: Corrected harness to ram shackles as the favorite contraption.
2019-10-28: Improved some wordings.