Did you find the Wolfenstein II reveal trailer felt… surprisingly similar to one of Bethesda’s other long-running franchises?
A bizarre collection of retro-futuristic, propaganda-like archive reel footage. It feels similar, folksy and comforting, but something’s not right.
You wake up in a subterranean facility, wrought from steel and bathed red with artificial light. Confused. Disoriented. Death lingers around you; it feels like it always has.
Then there’s some exposition. It’s Bethesda, and this isn’t Doom, so there’s going to be chatter with NPCs about doing the things you need to do, and why you’re doing the things you need to do.
We’ve also got old-timey, vintage radio music. Malt shops and strawberry milkshakes. Overpowered, robotically-enhanced body armour. More subterranean facilities; they’re almost… vault-like, in their construction.
Guns, shooting, killing things, places that look like we might know them, and that certainly carry the labels of places we once knew, but they’re different. Darker. Different. A strange, unsettling future, where the timeline split from our own at a crucial point in history.
It may feel a bit Fallout, but don’t worry. You – AKA William “B.J.” Blazkowicz – are going to sort it all out by murdering some fucking Nazis. And if that’s upsetting neo-nazis in the process? Well that’s a hilarious side effect.
Wolfenstein is, has, and always will be about stopping the Nazis, and yes, I’m afraid to say that does mean murdering them in the face. It would be lovely if there was a peaceful resolution to Wolfenstein but World War II didn’t have one, so its unlikely a pulpy, hyper-violent pastiche of it will end with hugs and handshakes.
But do you know what? Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus looks fucking ace, and if you’re thinking that Naziism is something that needs protecting, you need to take a serious, long, hard look at your world view.
