Wolfenstein: Vulnerability in Hopelessness

A game review by Tristan Pagan

“There's this dream. Something important. It's gone when I wake up. No time for dreams, I guess. The monster never dies no matter how many times you kill it. It just sheds its skin and changes form. I can feel the weight of the world pushing me down, I try to carry it nonetheless. One last time, then I can rest.” - B.J Blazkowicz.

Wolfenstein is often dismissed as a dumb game series, a pulp first-person shooter worth nothing more than to rent it and then beat it within the weekend. While it is true that Wolfenstien is a goofy game about how Nazis took over the world and now B.J. has to kill all the Nazis, the games hide genuine heart and hope for humanity.

Let's get one thing straight. The Wolfenstein games are very smart games. The amount of research that goes into the historical revisionist setting is astounding. The Nazis in Wolfenstein have taken over the world with futuristic technology by 60s standards and have colonized the moon. They are planning to build concentration camps on the moon. Hitler is still alive, but his health has deteriorated. Which is real. Hitler was in very bad health before he died.

While the Nazis seem more very large and often overwhelming, their grasp on their power is still flimsy at best. In the game it is explained that their infrastructure is very weak. This comes off as a video gamey explanation on how your character is able to break into Nazi-occupied buildings very easily, but it is also shows they were never as powerful as they think they are.

I love how the characters fighting against the Nazis all have some sort of feature that would not be accepted by the Nazis. Fergus is Irish. Caroline is in a wheelchair. Even the main character B.J. Blazkowicz is Jewish on his mother's side.

B.J. is also the perfect main character in this game. While many video game protagonists of this sort of game are 30 to 40 something with moral ambiguity tattooed on their foreheads, B.J. is different. He is a walking contradiction. He is a one-man army who has taken on thousands of Nazis at once. He is a shockingly vulnerable man who hates that he still has to fight the Nazis and that they won WWII. He is a stoic emotionless killer. He constantly monologues about how he is worried he will never get to see his unborn kids and that they will have to grow up in a world ruled by Nazis. While he is constantly sad and depressed he never gives up the fight. He won’t stop until the Nazis are wiped out. He never stops believing that a better world is possible after they take down the Nazis. That a better world is possible and worth fighting for.

Wolfenstein New Order is PS4 and PS5 through backwards compatibility. Same with Xbox one series x. It is also on the 360. Wolfenstein Old Blood is on every console but the 360. Same with the New Colossus. All the games can be purchased through stream.