Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is an action shooter game published on 27 October 2017 for Windows PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and next year, on 29 June 2018 for Switch. The game is developed by the award winning game developer MachineGames. The publisher is Bethesda Softworks, also known for Doom and Rage series. It is safe to say that the game was in good hands and there is no surprise that we’ve got one of the best xbox shooting games / ps4 fps video games yet.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was the nominee and winner of some prestigious game awards. In 2017, the videogame won The Game Award for Best Action Game; in 2018, it won NAVGTR Award for Franchise Action. It was also nominated for BAFTA Games Award for Best Narrative and has some other nominations and awards, like: five nominations at Nordic Game Awards 2018, including Nordic Game of the Year and Best Game Design.
Wolfenstein II is a sequel to the Wolfenstein: The New Order, that come out on 20 May 2014, in turn a sequel of 2009 Wolfenstein. But 2009 Wolfenstein was developed by another company — Raven Software — and published by Activision. Wolfenstein: The New Order was developed and released by the same pair as Wolfenstein II: MachineGames & Bethesda Softworks.
Wolfenstein: The New Order is set in an alternate history where the Nazis won the World War II. You are playing William “B.J.” Blazkowicz and the goal is to stop the Nazis from rulling the world. The story did not change too much from The New Order to The New Colossus. The first game was taking action in an 1960s occupied Europe, where now players are fighting the Nazis in the 1961 occupied America.
B.J. is not alone, he has help from armed resistance. In this first-person shooter, you have access to traditional arms, like pistols, machine guns, shotguns, grenades and grenade launchers, but also to futuristic firearms, like laser blasters. Realism is not the strong suit of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Shooting is, thanks to the id Tech 6 engine. You should buy Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus for the shooting first and foremost.
The game started some (planned or unwanted) controversies, with Bethesda tweeting messages like “Make America Nazi-free again”. It was maybe awkward that at the time real-world white nationalists were holding rallies in the streets of some USA cities. The game take us to some historic places, like Roswell, New Mexico, or on the streets of New Orleans, and down to a post-nuclear Manhattan/New York.
The story and the anti-Nazi vibe is deeply rooted in the game, as B.J. is a happy Nazi killer that is returning home to United States after a 14 year coma. His goal is to start a second American Revolution with the help of what remained in terms of armed Resistance and using a power suit made by an ancient Jewish sect. You can find multiple layers of ideology if you dig deeper, as the bigotry and hate is taking now place in a Nazi-occupied USA.
On the other hand, this is a video game. As mentioned, realism is not the game’s strong suit. Maybe this is what saves the game, as probably realism would have sunk it along other video games that were not successful. Wolfenstein: The New Order is an excellent xbox one / ps4 shooting game with a great story, full of twists and turns and a cast of nice characters. It is a violent video game and the gunplay is very satisfying as you would expect by Bethesda Softworks and how a first-person shooter must be. The experience provided by Wolfenstein II is great, full of action and strong story moments. It is a single player shooter, it lacks features such Battle Royale, but it is a great shooter. Wolfenstein II is a pure shooter experience that no fans of the genre afford to miss.
