I remember Wolfenstein: The New Order garner praise when it first came out, but I gave it a pass at the time. I assumed it was just another corridor shooter with the inevitable super-Nazis and robo-Hitler. It was only after I played Doom 2016 that I got a taste for the revived id brand of boomer shooter action, and started actively seeking out similar games. They’re perfect games to unwind with, focusing on a basic, but immensely satisfying core gameplay loop.
I’d just finished some 50-hour-long RPG and needed something short and simple to cool down with. I opened up Steam, saw that Wolfenstein was on sale, and thought “why not?”. It would be just the kind of brainless action I needed. Cut to ten hours of exciting Nazi-crushing action later, and I was stunned. I had just played a game with all the over-the-top thrills and spills you’d expect of an old-school shooter, that was simultaneously a touching (and at times distressing) story about sympathetic, human characters. I still think about it today, and it’s easily one of the best stories of any FPS ever.
The Wolfenstein series has always been a wild secret/alternative history setting, and the New Order pushes things to the absolute limit. The game kicks off in 1946, with the Nazis on the verge of global domination. The Allies’ final throw of the dice is a direct assault on the laboratory of Wilhelm “Deathshead” Strasse, (see our walkthrough here) a Nazi scientist whose technological advances hold the key to victory. It all goes horribly wrong of course and ends with our hero William J. Blazckowicz having to make a terrible choice. Two of his comrades are captured by Deathshead, and he is forced to choose who lives, and who dies.
It’s a fantastic opening sequence and covers a lot of ground narratively. There’s a palpable sense of hopelessness as our heroes throw themselves desperately at literal towering Nazi war machines, and the villains are immediately established as utterly sadistic, and eminently hate-able. Nazis in video games are pretty old hat by this point, so making them interesting villains again is an impressive feat. Deathshead’s taunting will stay with you right to the very end of the game. Blaszkowicz escapes but is badly wounded, resulting in him falling into a coma, ending up catatonic in an asylum until 1960.
The characters are what really bring The New Order to life. Blazckowicz himself has a lot more depth than your typical FPS protagonist, and the dynamic between him and Anya Oliwa (the woman who nurses him back to health after his escape from Deathshead) is handled with surprising care. When Anya’s parents are murdered, and she’s arrested, Blazckowicz is spurred from his stupor, killing her attackers. The pair then make their way to Berlin and join the Kreisau Circle, an underground resistance movement right under the Reich’s nose.
Blazckowicz and Anya are great as a couple for several reasons. First, they are each fully-realized characters in their own right. A lot of games will have one-half of a couple (normally the woman) play a totally passive role, usually as someone to be rescued, or seduced and then collected like a trophy. Granted, Blazckowicz does rescue Anya near the start of the game but make no mistake, she is not a damsel in distress.
Even before joining the resistance, Anya is instrumental in the Eisenwald Prison break-in by distracting a guard and procuring a getaway car. There’s a particularly nice moment just after that when having swum their way through icy waters to freedom, Anya asks Blazckowicz to hold her because she’s cold. It’s a blink-and-you-‘d-miss-it kind of thing, but I love that Machine Games took the time to write a character who could be brave, competent, yet vulnerable all at the same time. Anya continues to play an important role after becoming a member of the Kreisau Circle, intercepting Nazi radio messages, and playing a key role in locating Set Roth, a member of the ancient Jewish secret scientific society, Da’at Yichud.
The other thing I appreciate about the characters in The New Order is that they have hopes and desires beyond simply winning the war and killing Nazis. Blazckowicz himself is the obvious example, telling Anya during a moment of calm that he “wants this with her, always”. Moments like this paint the protagonist as more than just a gun-toting stoic with no ambition beyond racking up his body count. It also means that the moments of intimacy between Anya and Blazckowicz don’t feel gratuitous, as there’s a powerful sense that they are looking for a momentary escape from reality in each other.
It’s not just the two leads who stand out though. One of my favorite relationships in the game is that between Klaus Kreutz, an ex-Nazi turned resistance member, and his adopted son, Max Hass. Born with a severe brain injury, Max essentially has the mind of a child (although he is very good at chess), but stands at over 7ft tall and has almost superhuman strength. I love the dynamic between the two because Max is tied intimately to Klaus’s redemption as a former Wehrmacht soldier, and is a reminder of Klaus’s biological son, who was murdered by the Nazis for being born with a club foot.
Given the historical context, Max and Klaus’s relationship is a powerful symbol. Klaus’s final words are particularly poignant, telling Max that he loves him and that he wishes he could see the strength inside himself. It’s one of my favorite moments in the whole game.
I never thought that a series like Wolfenstein would produce something as touching and as poignant as The New Order, I mean, it’s a game about killing Nazis on the moon, how sophisticated can it really be? Don’t make the same mistake I did and dismiss the game out of hand, it deserves to be played, and you’ll be glad you tried it!
