This game honestly really really surprised me. Not only with its quality and creativity, but with just how much damn heart it has. I usually steer away from pure first person shooter campaigns, as I generally feel like they're lacking more depth and nuance that you get out of RPGs or even adventure games. Wolfenstein: The New Order doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to gameplay philosophy, in fact it's kind of the opposite, but it places that classically designed gameplay loop into the context of a game with a great story, well rounded characters and modern production value.

Unfortunately this game starts off on the wrong foot, with a relatively generic opening scene. It introduces the villain and a couple of the side characters as well as the basic mechanics, but on the whole it feels vastly out of place from the rest of the game. I was ready to put it down and write the game off as a base level FPS campaign, but I pushed through that first couple sections and was treated with a wonderful surprise.

There's a moment pretty early on in which you're introduced to the central area of the game, a place that acts as a base to return to throughout the story and introduces you to a whole host of characters that flesh out the cast. This completely recontextualizes your actions and motivation for the rest of the game, and made me connect to the world a lot more.

It's at this point where the game also takes a turn in terms of story creativity, introducing more science fiction type elements that kept me even more engaged when mixed with the historical rewrite of the Nazis winning WWII. The character Set brings with him a whole host of lore expansion that I found to be super fascinating, and wish it had been delved into a little more- or at least wish I was given the opportunity to do side quests and such related to it so I could learn more. The game handles its lore in a great way, laying newspaper article clippings around the environment. This feels so much more natural than random notes I.E. The Last of Us or audiologs in Bioshock (both of which I still LOVE), so I liked that.

The game has great pacing in terms of environments, jumping around incredibly varied locales and set pieces that mean each chapter has their own unique feel. Unfortunately this comes with the side effect of the progression of the story feeling rather convenient at times, with characters like Anya and Caroline just spewing expository dialogue while they tell you exactly where when and how you're going to do your next mission. This is pretty ridiculous when you consider that the Kreisau Circle is going up against essentially the rest of the planet, so it feels a bit underwhelming that they can just figure out how to get into the most secure locations on the planet just by decoding audio or something.

Surprisingly enough, while it's certainly solid and doesn't have any glaring issues, the First Person Shooter gameplay was actually my least favorite aspect of the game. It's fun to run around the unique levels that the game jumps between through the campaign, but I just found myself not caring too much for the gunplay itself. I did enjoy dual-wielding two of the same weapon at the same time, as well as the introduction of the laserkraftwerk, which reminded me a lot of Half-Life. Honestly a lot of this game reminds me of the Half-Life franchise, in terms of pacing, mechanics and level design- though that's a compliment- they learned from the best of the best.

In the end, while I might not LOVE the combat and felt like the progression was convenient at times, the game's strengths lie in the absolutely wonderful cast of supporting characters with incredible performances, it's unique concept of rewritten history, and the variety of locations and set pieces that you blast your way through. It's a dumb, explosion filled romp in some places, but damn does it sure have heart.

I had really low hopes for this game. I love Wolfenstein 3d, being 10 and playing the shareware version in my basement was my introduction to First Person Shooters. The atmosphere of that game sticks with me until this day and I would never think I could love a Wolfenstein game more than that, but somehow this masterpiece happens.

This game has no right to be as fun as it is. I think it's important to say I think this is due to me playing it on Über, which in my opinion transforms this into a whole different experience. What would've been a pretty great FPS with a fun revenge story turns into a Brutally Difficult tactical arcade shooter where you can't just run and gun you are force to survey an area before running in guns blazing and require 10-20-30 runs through sections till you know the location of every enemy, exactly how many shots you need to drop him, and exactly what gun you are going to use to do it. It makes you feel like an absolute master at the end of a level when you are rewarded with the next section of the game excited what scenario the game holds for you next and threw curve ball after curve ball at you to force you to max out every skill so you can stealth, duel wield, and blow your way through every level.

The story is great, if you needed any more reasons to hate nazis the opening of this game makes you personally want to topple the regime they set up around you. This is alternate history done properly and gives an amazing sense of a resistance army building up through the game and seriously the fight keeps getting bigger and bigger as you make it to the final sequences, it feels like you've had an impact on the world they build. The characters that they surround you with are so enjoyable and it's one of the first times in a game I went out of my way to talk to characters to get to know them more.

This was a flawless execution that made me realize what a single player FPS experience should be something you can't replicate online.

It's the best of these new Wolfenstein games, hands down.

It has the best level design with almost every level having various ways of making it to the goal, the story is the most consistent, the characters are the most likable they've been so far, and the gunplay OHHHH it's so good.

It's sad that the later games got so shit but this one is really damn great.