Wolfenstein has done for FPS games what Lord of the Rings did for the fantasy genre. It established and defined what makes an FPS game. It wasn’t the first FPS, but it and Doom definitely allowed the genre to soar from the depths. The first person perspective, voices of enemies, moving bodies, limited ammunition, and stealth are all elements that were popularized by Wolfenstein . With time, the series went onto more modern mechanics. Seemingly taking cues from other shooters at the time, Wolfenstein began to invest more in the story to keep players interested. In the case of Wolfenstein: The New Order and Old Blood , both games brought improvements to the story, such as time travel and interaction with multiple side characters. Gameplay too, is improved upon in these new revivals. Dual wielding your choice of guns, for example, is one hell of a way to get a literal bang for your buck in The New Order .
That said, the FPS genre has had a chance to establish itself in innovative ways that extrapolate far from the modernization of The New Order . Wolfenstein is no longer the name of the genre, now it’s Call of Duty and Battlefield for popular shooters or BioShock and The Last of Us for the artsier crowd. The innovations of these games, especially System Shock and BioShock , make them stand out above Wolfenstein . They were made popular due their combining of the horror and FPS genre, allowing for a compelling story and gameplay – something Wolfenstein was never quite able to combine. Modern shooters have followed these examples to varying degrees, and Wolfenstein just can’t keep up.
Despite this, a sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order has been confirmed. In an interview with TwoLeftSticks, B. J. Blazkowicz’s voice actor Brian Bloom mentioned that, “if you look at Bethesda’s E3 2016 lineup there was a title hinted at in a cool way. It sparked a bit of wildfire. That subtle, very simple DOS language, going through the titles. Perhaps we’re working on that as we speak.” He’s talking about a mock command screen that was shown during Bethesda’s E3 conference. It displayed a long list of Bethesda releases since the ’90s, which included the Wolfenstein series and a new title: The New Colossus . The release date was left blank. The title’s association to the series comes from the sonnet by Emma Lazarus, which was recited by Blazkowicz himself at the end of the last game. After being teased for so long, it’s nice to get such a big hint from such a prominent figure in the series.
As exciting as a new sequel is, I think it’s important to step back and think about what a new Wolfenstein game can really bring to the industry. Battlefield and Call of Duty have been around long enough that gunning down Nazis has gotten a bit old for some folks. The same enemy over and over again becomes less exciting as time goes on.
Wolfenstein started it all, but there are plenty of other games that do the same things and sometimes even improve on them. If Battlefield , Call of Duty , BioShock , and DOOM have anything to say, it’s about making the gameplay fun and the story interesting. Fun and dynamic gameplay is something DOOM has in spades, as there is nothing that makes a player feel more badass than gunning down demon after demon. In addition, enough time has passed between each subsequent DOOM game that technology itself was able to improve upon the latter aspects (save DOOM and DOOM II , which were only released a year apart).
Can a sequel to these games make more improvements, or is Wolfenstein past its prime? Well, it’s only been a year and a new game might come out in 2018 or so. Perhaps technology will do the trick like it did with DOOM , as the PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio have yet to reveal the full spectrum of their wonders. Or, the series might receive another shot of innovation like it did with New Order and we will see bigger story coupled with fantastic gameplay.