Last year Machine Games managed to refresh the grandaddy of first-person shooters with The New Order. A blend of revised late 90’s shooter mechanics and design with a Tarantino-esque exploitation film sheen saw to it that the latest Wolfenstein was well received and put the franchise in rude health once again after the lamentable 2009 entry nearly scuppered the long-running series. Now, a year later, the developers have decided to pay further respects to the series’ past with The Old Blood; a standalone prequel outing that features both a return to and escape from the nefarious Castle Wolfenstein.
The Old Blood falls back into the timeline of those earlier entries, taking place entirely in the alternate 1946 where the Nazis were not pushed back on D-Day. We come into play as gruff-voiced protagonist -and man with arms of steel- B.J. Blazkowicz is going undercover to infiltrate the menacing Castle Wolfenstein. Naturally things go wrong quickly and head ever-downhill from then on. It keeps the story-telling formula of The New Order, peppered with narrative voiceovers and gloriously cheesy 80’s action hero dialogue, but a swifter run-time means side characters don’t get quite as much fleshing out here. The big bad you spend much of the game at odds with is probably the standout new addition. Otherwise, the reasons this isn’t a fully-fledged sequel are quite apparent as The Old Blood borrows heavily from The New Order and the last few Wolfenstein titles for set pieces, themes and areas, perhaps most notably from Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
The initial ascent to the castle was a wonderful bit of nostalgia. As a huge fan of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, it was splendid to relive the opening beats of that classic in a new gaming era. What followed is essentially a modernized take on that title, filling in the blanks with The New Order’s mechanics and storytelling and while that is welcome in certain respects, other parts echo some of the weakest moments in Wolfenstein’s history. Digging up a once novel concept (the undead) in a time when the market is flooded with it. We’ll get to that later on. For now, best to start with the positives.
For the first half of the game though it’s straight up Nazi shooting and B.J. narrating events in his world-weary manner. This chunk plays much like a reverse-engineered version of The New Order, featuring satisfying shooting with dual-wielding madness and visceral brutality. The tech is obviously less advanced as we are going back a couple of decades from the last time out so you get some interesting work in progress enemies that hint at what is to come. The fact that the biggest new mechanic is a pipe keeps with the flow of that theme of back to basics. The pipe is multi-purpose, giving you a brutal melee weapon, a tool for prising open covers and a crude wall-climbing device. It’s nice to cut some of the bloat out of the inventory with the use of one item, especially given how ridiculously useless some of the equipment that the pipe replaces was. The stealth-based sections also remain, allowing you to bypass a sizeable slice of violence by following enemy routines to avoid conflict, although once or twice these sections seem badly designed -or were simply intentional curveballs- as you get spotted no matter what. Either way it’s an annoyance.
On the plus side, the tone of the first half is far less messy than The New Order’s barrage of softer moments being railroaded by over the top violence and silliness. Granted it’s still ridiculous in The Old Blood, but far more consistent tonally. There is still a deep-seated joy to be had in the idea of thwarting the Nazis in a videogame and after a near industry-wide break from doing just that the once overused trope has felt somewhat revitalized with Machine Games take on it. So it’s a shame then that the second half of the game descends into a zombie shooting gallery that shows exactly what needs to be left in the past where Wolfenstein is concerned.
Personally speaking, I still get a kick out of the undead in games, if only when the context is right and they aren’t just slow-moving cardboard cutouts to empty your ammo clip into. Even though they are a part of Wolfenstein’s history, The New Order showed you could move away from them and keep the spirit of the series alive. In The Old Blood, the shuffling hordes are a chore once you’ve stealth-killed hulking mecha-soldiers and obliterated drones with excessive firepower. There is effort to inject these zombie sections with variety by throwing new weaponry into the mix, but even then these are basically lifted from The New Order.
Despite this late downturn in enjoyment (that includes a sad non-event of a final boss battle) the game is over just soon enough that it doesn’t massively impact the positives The Old Blood has going for it. It is fair to say the pacing is far better here than in The New Order and that serves to make a streamlined, no nonsense shooter that is worth the budget price all things considered. Surprisingly, there is almost as much longevity in here as there was with The New Order thanks to challenge areas based on certain firefights found in the game to best, plus an expansion of the hidden ‘’Nightmare’’ bonus levels idea branching out into having one per chapter. The Old Blood serves as a fitting tip of the hat to all that has come before and a subtle nod to all that the series will become going forward. Now that this New Order/Old Blood chapter is out of way, Machine Games can focus on upping the ante for the next full-fat installment of one of gaming’s most treasured names. And with it, they can continue to push it to new heights.