Hi, I’m Hamish Black and welcome to Writing on Games.
2014's Wolfenstein: The New Order ended in a way that felt so perfect that it was weird
to me that a sequel was even consideredIt was sudden, but it was all it needed to be;
BJ, now successfully transformed from head-in-a-box to full-fledged, complicated human being,
found himself in a situation that likely wouldn’t achieve much.
The Nazis had established themselves as an unstoppable force, shifting BJ and co.’s
fight from one of “taking down the Nazis” to a much more grounded “fighting the little
battles to assert your identity under constant oppression.”
In this he had found happiness, he had established a small island of solace from the Nazi scourge.
His declaration of “you’re clear” was him signing off; the consequences would likely
be insignificant, but he had won his own battle.
That was the end of it.
It was the wildest slice of life possible, but it was a slice of life nonetheless.
How could Wolfenstein 2 possibly continue from such a seemingly natural stopping point?
Well, it does so by simply…
carrying on.
In what feels like grimmest turn of events possible, BJ survives; is torn apart by the
blast and subsequently by his friends trying to save him.
Instead of finding the end of his road, he’s right back where he started; in a wheelchair,
being held down and forced to watch as the villain wreaks unspeakable anguish upon his
friends, entirely removed of all agency.
In other words, he is tired.
And it’s here that BJ's new journey begins in earnest.
It’s a fascinating and emotionally complex set-up that the game handles remarkably well;
far from the type of character we expect from burly shooter protagonists, Blazkowics is
a husk both physically and mentally.
His inner monologues used to give off a surprising air of literacy; now they feel like genuine
cries for help.
Instead of establishing how people fight such incongruous opposition, The New Colossus forces
BJ to confront the potential futility of his actions; forcing him to endure another moment
like he endured The New Order’s moment.
The situation under which he struggles may seem preposterous but the struggles themselves
are incredibly human; he suffers from severe depression, manifesting in nihilistic self-sabotage,
in pushing himself away from those he loves.
He sees himself as a burden but also recognises that it’s all in his head and that the fight
ain’t gonna stop.
The main tension of the game’s story then emerges from BJ trying to navigate these conflicting
feelings while the surrounding cast of characters attempts to reignite the will to fight that
once burned so aggressively within our protagonist.
And what better way to narratively represent that struggle than by making the fight itself
really goddamn fun?
Moreso than The New Order, The New Colossus realises this.
Weapons have a real heft to them, you have many more tools at your disposal, combat arenas
are more open but it is easy to become overwhelmed even on normal difficulties.
Sniping with a pistol isn’t the fix-all solution it was in The New Order, forcing
a more adaptive playstyle.
Even the more carefully thought out plans will probably go a bit pell-mell, giving combat
a dynamism it previously lacked as you go from stalking in the shadows to frantically
running around guns blazing, mashing E and hoping you ran over a health pack.
At its worst, the game still gives into some of the same corridor-crawl impulses that made
its predecessor less fun to play than to generally experience, with many power ups feeling superfluous
and repetition setting in as hitscan weapons lead to some fairly frustrating deaths.
At its best though, it helps shift your image of BJ from Schwarzenegger in Commando to Stallone
in First Blood; still capable of making life extremely difficult for those in his way,
but having to be more thoughtful in the process.
The mental fragility BJ feels is physically highlighted to you in a way that doesn’t
detract from the bombast of everything happening around you.
The best gameplay scenarios in The New Colossus reflect and condense this duality of explosive
shlock and intimate humanity in the same way the writing does, at once lending focus to
the gameplay and allowing the story to go wherever it needs to in order to convey BJ’s
character.
For example, the image of Blazkowics rolling around in a wheelchair cutting through Nazis
is inherently funny; think of how daft it is that a man who has just awoken from a coma
has the muscle strength to hold up a gun let alone wheel himself around; that the Nazis
are a pesky fly waiting to be swatted, and BJ’s gotta grumpily get out of bed with
a rolled-up newspaper.
On top of that it’s just an unusual gameplay conceit; a fun set-piece that messes with
the way you expect the legendary Blazkowicz to move.
You’re not charging through enemies; you’re slow and unwieldy.
It’s part of the joke, but it’s also an interesting change of pace from other shooters.
However, it’s also quietly informed by the sadness of the situation he finds himself
in.
He has been denied his freedom, doomed to repeat the same moment time and time again,
seemingly since his troubled childhood.
Yet when he wakes up, his priority is single-mindedly finding Anya, with whom he can laugh and love,
reminding him, however briefly, that it’s not those around him that put him in this
situation; it’s the goddamn Nazis.
All this from just one dumb moment that comes down to “you know that hour long intro sequence
of The New Order?
What if we could boil that whole thing down to fifteen minutes by giving him a gun in
the wheelchair?”
It’s funny, angry, tragic, sad but also weirdly optimistic all at the same time; a
beautifully naturalistic melange of meaning for all that it spawns from such a surreal
series of events.
Absurdity in The New Colossus lies not in the idea that Nazis have taken over or that
a heavily pregnant woman is being sent in to fight with her boyfriend in a mech suit.
That’s the norm in this new, heightened reality.
What’s absurd is the idea that BJ, with the fresh entrails of the armies he just mowed
through for the billionth time now cooking on his smoking dual shotguns, could respond
with “I’m going to die.
I won’t make it through the week.
I’ll be a bad dad.”
The fact that you always emerge victorious in these explosive sequences highlights the
extent to which this is all psychological, which in turn bolsters the frustration of
the characters trying to tell him as much.
On top of the fact that the game’s 6 hour campaign cuts away the fat that at points
bogged down The New Order, both gameplay and story are working far more seamlessly than
they did in 2014’s game.
Every moment in the game is tinged with the same mess of emotions that permeate the intro
sequence and, true to the game's slice of life style, it doesn’t try to untangle any
this for you.
The fact that these character complexities are being explored against the backdrop of
some of the most cartoonish grindhouse-level shlock I’ve seen in a game makes it as darkly
comic as it is quietly poignant and imbuing each scene with that level of layered meaning
is downright impressive.
That said, it’s not all perfect.
BJ's arc essentially concludes about two thirds of the way through the game and while this
does leave room for some of the most enjoyable characters I’ve seen of late to shine (including
Fergus who might be the only example of a well-written Scottish character I can think
of), it also puts the stoppers on the , in favour of a more generalised “fight the
system “ narrative that perhaps means a little too hard into the edgy grindhouse aesthetic
to fully reflect the heartfelt intentions behind it.
All in though, it’s hard to dwell on any imperfections given the breakneck pace at
which the game propels you through each section and the quality of writing on show.
If The New Order was an experiment in applying character where there previously was very
little, The New Colossus exists to push this character to its existential limits; not looking
to give any concrete answers, just to present the situation in as human a way as possible,
no matter how messy or complicated or nonsensical the end product may seem; aside from a
few pitfalls, the fact that it’s so successful in
this endeavour is extremely worthy of your
time and praise.