Wolfenstein: The New Order is a single-player first-person shooter game released on May 20, 2014, for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC platforms. It was developed by MachineGames and published by Bethesda Softworks and is themed around the alternate history of Nazi Germany had won WW2 and was on its way to world domination.



The war well sketched

The game already starts with a frenetic vibe, with you being the North American Captain B.J. Blazkowicz, the long-time hero of the franchise (better developed than ever), in 1946, and striving in one of the last American onslaughts against the Nazi army trying to put an end to the war. The introduction, despite being a little long, is not even close to tiring and already gives you an idea of what's to come: scenarios well set, rich in detail, and immersive and very well constructed action scenes that captivate you and make you tense in the midst of the chaos of war. Simple episodes, however, are very well constructed, such as having to fix the bomber plane while it is being shot at by fighters while exchanging fire with them, bringing a pleasant and easy-to-enjoy immersion.

The graphics in the game are very nice, the landscapes and the construction of the open vistas as well as the urbanism are impressive, plus there are several scenarios.



Although it's not an open world map, each stage has long runs, with secrets and collectibles to explore and collect. Adventuring around the map rewards you a lot, because it gives you, besides the collectibles, ammo, and supplies even more than you need. As a player who likes to explore a lot in order to better absorb the experience that the developers would like to pass on, I had a lot of fun walking through the game's ducts looking for some collectibles. Furthermore, it is in these adventures that you will find newspapers and documents providing more information about the universe built into the game.

Have you ever stopped to think about how the world would be dominated by the Nazis?

Returning now to talk a little more about the history and universe of the game, after a glimpse and reverie of all that occurred during the second war, you find yourself waking up from a coma 14 years later, in 1960, in a world where the German Third Reich, which represents the real evil, the masters of eugenics and fascist propaganda and responsible for the extermination of millions of people, emerged victorious from the war and perpetuates its Nazi imperialism around the world.



From there, the game's story delves deeper to develop not only a well-articulated plot for the main character, which nicely unravels the reasons for his ambition to take out the German army and even a romance, but a rich setting about the consequences that the German fascist dictatorship brings.

I particularly like what MachineGames does beyond the main story, which by the way is very good. The world-building delves into how fascist propaganda and oppression occur. That being said, we come across dramatic scenes that display the cruel and oppressive relationship between the Nazi state and the populace; they are always very expressive scenes that pull tension or hatred for the Nazis out of you by force.

During the exploration of the game, as previously mentioned, you can always find documents that tell you how the world situation is, or newspapers that show you German news and how the media control by the state is perceptible.

In addition, we have Neumond Records inside the game, which is a fictitious record label that was created by the developers, just for the game, which produced entire records inspired by global hits of the 60s, but that address many characteristics and details of music made under dictatorial regimes with Aryan eugenicist appeals. The soundtrack appears largely in the cutscenes, so in a way, it does not influence the gameplay, but it certainly adds a lot in building the fascist atmosphere that will generate enough hatred to want to get your hands on everyone.

Now, it also adds to bring you an immersion; it builds a very human and socio-political context that, despite the atrocities that occur during the story, makes it seem very real and that really could have occurred if the Nazis had actually won the war.

In this aspect, the game brings more content than the fun exchange of honest and bloody shooting, it makes you want to continue consuming that storyline and therefore stands out as an alternate history game. Because it is a retelling of a historical context, I think it is essential this emphasis the development of the universe, because, at least for me, understanding better the new reality presented by the game was one of the main motivators to keep me faithful to the gameplay until the end.

Blood and brutality

The brutal violence, torture, and cruelty give us an idea of how it would be to survive as a resistance within a reality with Nazi fascist rule since hostility is the only possible revolutionary resource in a fight against the dictator system. Despite having some (several) gore and heavy scenes, we have extremely caricatured villains, just like in Tarantino's films, who in their construction make us lose sensitivity towards them, we begin to see them as without humanity, so cutting them into pieces with a chainsaw or drowning the Nazi guard in his own urine becomes something less heavy.

The game features acid humor amidst the chaos and bloodshed; if you enjoy a sordid little joke, even if it's a gesture, I'm sure you'll be able to get a few laughs during the gameplay.

I confess that I had a few hearty chuckles during the game...



The gameplay allows you to proceed in different ways, be it stealth, killing enemies only when necessary, with well-animated executions or with silenced weapons, to also in an insane shootout, using a rifle in each hand and pouring bullets into the Nazis.

In matters of mechanics, the game does not implement anything very innovative when compared to other first-person shooter games, although the action and shooting are quite fluid and fun. Overall, I think the combat dynamics were developed more for silent, stealth gameplay since the maps provide a lot of support for hiding and playing without actually having to exchange shots.

Not to mention that sneaking through missions is tremendously easier than alerting the guards that activate the endless hordes. In this respect, I think it is a negative point because the game on normal difficulty becomes very quiet when you avoid direct combat.



As for innovation, the skill progression system that the developers brought is very different. Honestly, I can not say whether I like it or not, but it is something new and interesting because it makes the progression more dynamic. Instead of leveling up and distributing talent points, you upgrade or unlock new skills as you accomplish certain tasks, such as headshots, or executing enemies with the knife.

In the end, you end up developing the skills you are most comfortable playing.



The audio is the lowest point of the game (I don't mean it's bad! It's just low when compared to the other points), despite having a great dubbing of the main characters and a good soundtrack. However, I found the 3D ambiance of the effects weak and the dubbing of the secondary characters bad. At the same time that the quality of the sound effects samples are good, I the spacing and surround of the audio I found to be well below par.

It happened a few times that I was being shot at and I couldn't identify where it was coming from just from the audio this hindered my combat a little bit because I depend a lot on the audio in my gameplay. While in the dubbing, there were characters the accent sounded a bit forced and others didn't really convey the energy of the scene.