Wolfenstein: The New Order

Wolfenstein: The New Order has been made with love. This might not be obvious to you when you are giving a Nazi both barrels as the world around you collapses in a shower of bone and blood and concrete. It might not seem like the most pertinent observation to make as you hammer the middle mouse button to stab a cyberdog to death. I would forgive you for missing all this evident care and attention to detail when you wrench your first Nazi lasergun from its fixed emplacement and use it to mulch a charging column of Third Reich roboguys.

But it is there if you go looking for it. This alt-history vision of Nazi-dominated 1960s Europe has been constructed with extraordinary style. Every environment expresses a distinct identity through its colour pallette, architecture, and use of light. The interfaces, technology, even the typography of this speculative other-Earth feel correct and cohesive. The New Order is Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds by way of Moonbase Alpha—an x-rated episode of Captain Scarlet starring the world’s most heavily militarised jacket potato.

B. J. Blazkowicz returns during a last-ditch Allied assault on a Nazi compound in 1946. This game is technically a sequel to Raven’s 2009 Wolfenstein, but all you really need to know is that the Nazis have somehow figured out how to graft a gigantic staple remover onto a dog’s face. Extraordinary technological advances like this one have given them the edge, and B. J. is left in a fourteen year coma when that war-ending final assault goes south. He wakes up in a world entirely controlled by the Third Reich and becomes the cornerstone of a resistance movement committed to righting historical wrongs.