Back to some video game reviews for a few posts :-)  This one is for Wolfensein: Young Blood, which I finished March 8, 2025....yeah, I know it's been a while since I finished this, why am I writing about it near the end of October? ;-)  No real answer to that, other than "I got busy," but brace yourselves for more long overdue thoughts :-).

So...This game felt very familiar! I actually had to hit the internets to see if I had played this before!  The consensus is that it's inspired by Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which I had played back in the original xbox days. Many of the locales just felt familiar.

Story Synopsis from Wikipedia

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood takes place in an alternate history 1946, just prior to the prologue of Wolfenstein: The New Order, with O.S.A. agents William "B.J." Blazkowicz (Brian Bloom) and Richard Wesley (taking up the codename Agent One) on a mission to infiltrate Castle Wolfenstein and obtain a top secret folder containing the location of SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse from the castle's commander, Nazi archeologist and Obersturmbannführer Helga von Schabbs. Entering the castle disguised as Schutzstaffel officers, B.J. and Wesley fail to find the folder and are captured by Helga's lieutenant, Sturmbannführer Rudi Jäger, a massive and sadistic dog trainer who feeds captured prisoners to his mechanically augmented canines. While Wesley is dragged away by Rudi for interrogation, B.J. succeeds in escaping the prison cells and fighting his way through the castle. B.J. eventually locates Wesley strapped to an electric chair used by the Nazis for torture. Before B.J. can rescue Wesley, Rudi activates the chair and electrocutes him to death. Jäger then feeds Wesley's dead body to his prized albino dog, Greta, and straps B.J. into the chair to interrogate him. B.J. breaks free, injures Rudi, and kills Greta.

Escaping the castle, B.J. travels to the nearby village of Paderborn and meets up with the local German resistance leader, Ludwig Kessler, as well as Kessler's assistant Annette, a young Jewish girl whom Kessler is sheltering from the Nazis. Kessler's tavern is attacked by Nazi forces led by Rudi, wearing an experimental suit of power armor, whom B.J. defeats and kills. B.J., Kessler, and Annette flee via rowboat to the village of Wulfburg, where Helga is conducting an archeological excavation attempting to find a hidden underground vault containing occult knowledge previously possessed by King Otto I.

After meeting up with O.S.A. operative Pippa (codenamed Agent Two), B.J. disguises himself as a waiter and infiltrates the tavern where Helga is staying. Helga sees through B.J.'s disguise and briefly captures him, but a massive earthquake caused by the Nazis opening the vault forces her and her cohort, Obersturmführer Emmerich Schreiner, to escape to the excavation site and leave B.J. behind. The opening of the vault also releases a gas that causes anyone that dies within the vicinity of Wulfburg to reanimate as hostile zombies known as "shamblers". B.J. makes his way through the burning ruins of Wulfburg while fighting the zombified Nazis and civilians who died in the earthquake. Agent Two is killed by a shambler, and B.J. has to kill her again when she reanimates as one. Returning to Kessler and Annette, B.J. finds the two of them have left their hiding spot in an attempt to find and rescue Annette's friend, Katrin.

B.J. finds Annette and Kessler separated by a collapsing bridge and stranded on opposite buildings, and the player is given the choice of traveling to Annette's building or Kessler's building. The person B.J. travels to will be rescued by him, while the other person will be killed by the shamblers then put down by B.J. when they reanimate. B.J. then travels to the dig site in pursuit of Helga, finally encountering her and Schreiner within King Otto's vault. There he finds the source of the zombie-creating gas: an undead giant known as 'The Monstrosity', a creature created by King Otto's alchemists as a weapon of war, then sealed away by the king after deciding it was an abomination. Helga is initially successful in using Old High German commands to control the monster, but when she attempts to order it to eat B.J., the monster mortally wounds her and kills Schreiner instead. B.J. fights and kills The Monstrosity, then finally obtains the secret folder from the dying Helga. B.J. is extracted from Wulfburg by his friend Fergus Reid, and the two of them embark from RAF Kinloss to assassinate Deathshead and end the war, while B.J. thinks about the nature of monsters and hopes that he can finally rest after this one final mission.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, the feeling of familiarity was great for this game.  I felt like I was revisiting an old game redone in higher graphics, even though the story has been retconned to fit with the newer Wolfenstein game continuity.  The game still includes occult elements, like the dead returning.  I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I hate zombies... I could do without the undead, but they seemed well integrated into the story.  If the developer continues the story in the future, I hope that some of these occult elements mix with the steampunk elements that develop later in the series.  The game was enjoyable, and it feels like it fits neatly within the new Wolfenstein game play style, even though it's a prequel.

Stats

Achievements: 16/50

Gamerscore 320/1100

Time Played: ?

Headshot Kills: 172

Stealth Kills: 35

Dual Wield Kills: 200

Total Kills: 873

Overal Grade: A-