WOLFENSTEIN II: THE NEW COLOSSUS

No time for Nazi puns, we gotta get Reich back to the killing

DEVELOPER BETHESDA PUBLISHER MACHINEGAMES DUE NOVEMBER 27

wolfenstein.bethesda.net

Everything about the reveal of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was perfect. The humour, the violence, the character moments - all of it showed that MachineGames don’t need to resort to bullshit marketing and hyperbole. They’re confident their game can sell itself. The reveal also help introduce the world to newcomers, yet it also showed returning fans that despite everything, the Nazis are still very much in control of America.

With the reveal out of the way I couldn’t wait to get my hands on The New Colossus and find out what else I could learn about the world. As you may recall, the ending of The New Order (the last game in the story chronologically) featured our hero B.J. Blazkowicz accepting his fate and telling his friends to bomb the Nazi stronghold he was still inside of.

I was told the section I was going to play was about fifteen minutes into the game, so how Blazkowicz survived was left unexplained. My demo began with Blazkowicz waking up in a hospital bed onboard a ship with his lover Anya beside him. She tells him she’s pregnant now, with his twins no less. But it doesn’t take long for this moment of peace to be broken by news that the Nazis are coming, and they’re looking for Blazkowicz.

It was about this time I realised everything wasn’t alright with Blazkowicz. After casually shooting a few Nazis, he climbed into a wheelchair and suddenly I was in control. No longer a one man army, Blazkowicz couldn’t even fire a gun without getting pushed back by the recoil.

Thankfully a familiar face named Seth Roth offered some help in the form of microwave traps he’d setup around the ship. Needless to say, I cooked my fair share of Nazis before the end of the demo. Even with that help it was clear the developers wanted me to feel vulnerable during my short time with the game. Blazkowicz might be back, and he’s done some damage to the Nazi regime, but he hasn’t won. Not yet.

In 1883 an American named Emma Lazarus wrote a poem that was later engraved onto a bronze plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. She titled it The New Colossus, and it contains one of the most famous verses of all time - “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.

In naming their game after this poem, I think MachineGames are trying to tell us something. Personally, I believe it’s their way of saying America isn’t a perfect country, and sometimes it falls short of its own ideals, but it’s a far cry from the one seen in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. This is also what makes the plight of Blazkowicz so compelling; he’s the embodiment of America at its most virtuous, and its most brutal. A hero to some, and a murderer to others. All I know for sure is I can’t wait to see him again and crush some Nazi skulls.

after casually shooting a few Nazis, he climbed into a wheelchair