The newest entry in the anti-fascist franchise brings the fight to America
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus is about one thing — killing every lowdown, dirty Nazi you see. It really doesn’t need a plot — the momentum of that overwhelming prime directive is enough to carry the game. The gameplay is basic point-and-shoot, but the customizability of weapons loadouts lends engaging variety to the simplicity. The character-level plot is pretty fuzzy and choppy, but the creepy, believably-crafted alternate history setting is strong enough to power the overarching plot: Nazis won World War II, they’ve annexed the United States, and your job is to set off a revolution that will burn Nazism out of America forever.
This is somehow a controversial political stance in today’s America. I wasn’t in the market for a shooter, but I picked up this game because there was an alt-right backlash, an actual backlash, against this tweet: https://twitter.com/wolfenstein/status/916075551382585344. It’s a basic promotional tweet, but the phrase “Make America Nazi-Free Again” ruffled some feathers on the internet. This ridiculous outrage, plus Bethesda’s response to it (uh, guys — we thought the “Are Nazis Bad” question was settled 70 years ago) made me decide to pick up the game, in which I spent 20 hours Making America Nazi-Free Again.
Everyone rips off The Man in the High Castle
Nazism is one of the great universally agreed evils (or at least it was) in the world. The USA built its modern mythos off of our actions to help topple a genocidal maniac and our assistance to a war-ravaged Europe in the postwar years, but the world of Wolfenstein takes that from us. We didn’t win. We don’t get to claim we helped save the world — the Nazis get to claim they own it. The proofs of this throughout the game are so visceral — from a nuked and crumbling Manhattan to a prison-city New Orleans, with Nazi machines of war patrolling to keep undesirables in check. The destruction of a major metropolis and the systematic genocide of American citizens, the construction of concentration camps on American soil, the colonization of the United States by the Reich — all of it feels real, constructed out of the surreal yet solid plausibility of nightmares.
Nazi parades and prison cities
The plot really is just to kill all Nazis, to systematically eliminate high-ranking targets in order to advance the interests of the rebellion, but the world of The New Colossus gives more than enough weight to the story. The artistic interest in the game isn’t so much what you do, but where you’re doing it. The vision of an America complicit in the Reich is stomach-churning, and supplies all the narrative impetus necessary to get you through the game. It’s in the details, like when you go to a Nazi parade down the streets of a small American town and overhear a German soldier berating a fawning Klansman for his atrocious pronunciation of the German he’s learning. It’s in the reaction of the propagandized citizenry to who you are — you’re not B.J. Blazkowicz, Polish-American hero of the ill-fated World War II, you’re Terror-Billy, indiscriminate killer and scourge to all upstanding American citizens. It’s in the casual complicity of those American citizens who are powerful — stand with the Reich, and the Reich will stand with you.
Bullets, bullets, and more bullets
This being a Wolfenstein game, the solution to this problem is to find all the bullets you can and fire them as quickly as you can. The enjoyment of the actual weapons use was a welcome surprise here. Bethesda treads a careful line between simplicity and variety — the choices aren’t overwhelming, but the customizability of each weapon and the ability to dual-wield mixed types makes it easy to match your exact loadout to how you want to play. I went with a LaserKraftWerk in my left hand, and a fully-optimized shotgun in my right. The first is a one-shot kill laser gun that’s a little bit touchy to aim, and the second is, well, a shotgun. The laser cut through all the distant opponents and all the heavily armored ones, and the shotgun obliterated close enemies and took care of cleanup in case of my poor aim with the laser. One issue with the game is, if you want to really buy in to the mythos of Terror-Billy, you might want to play on an easier setting. I eventually got the hang of things, but I spent a good half of the game getting absolutely brutalized by grunt soldiers, which really didn’t fit with the idea of B.J. Blazkowicz as an unstoppable killing machine.
The game is not a must-play, but it’s fun as hell. If you’re craving a shooter, I strongly recommend picking this one up. The horror of its alternate reality is plausible enough to hit you in the pit of your stomach, the gunplay is fast and engaging, and the game is a good reminder that yes, Nazis always have and always will be a Very Bad Thing.
Andrew Findlay Writes 