Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, because even the Wolfenstein devs couldn’t resist the allure of zombies.
After having quite a bit of fun with Wolfenstein: The New Order (and it seemingly renewing my faith in shooters, despite me still not liking them all that much because 73 deaths is still a lot when half of them were on a single boss and it didn’t help that I wouldn’t put the bottle down, LOL), I’m disappointed in this one. I thought with it being a prequel I’d get to know some more of the characters from before and maybe a bit more of B.J.’s past even.
And of course the Nazi mayhem.
But this game threw me for a f*ckin’ loop.
Its focus was less on the Nazi side of things and more on the zombie side of things. I honestly thought I was playing a certain other blend of games with some Wolfenstein thrown in, rather than a Wolfenstein game itself.
- Developed by MachineGames
- Published by Bethesda Softworks
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FAQ
What is this page?
This is an in-depth critique of the game Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. I go all in with my review by picking apart the game, piece by piece. By doing this, I try to help not only the devs that created the games, but also future aspiring devs by giving my viewpoint on everything as an avid gamer, but please understand…
There may be spoilers.
How long does it take to beat Wolfenstein: The Old Blood?
The game could take you anywhere from 6-8 hours, depending.
Are there other links?
Title Screen
Background
As you can see, there are three title screens you’ll come across when booting up the game.
Why three, I have no idea. It’s kind of annoying just to go through all of them, and a little pointless. They’re just delaying you playing the actual game, and the first screen could’ve been ditched entirely, and the second screen could’ve been placed after the third screen when you choose to play a new game or load into one you started.
It’s kind of a mess.
Anyway, the background itself has a blood-red color scheme with Castle Wolfenstein as the main building. Throughout each screen this remains the case, though in the second screen it’s flipped.
Guess they wanted it to be somewhat different.
While I don’t like the small square image that corresponds with the empty save spot option (because it blends with the background’s color scheme too well), I absolutely love the greyscale foreground image they went with in the third image. It makes the two characters pop–specifically Blazkowicz.
It’s in your face and tells you basically just what to expect of the game.
There is a languid movement to the background, but only a slight back and forth swaying of the background imagery, as well as dust motes sort of floating in the air. Honestly, this is one of those title screens that could’ve dealt with a static image rather than the sway. There’s no point to the effect.
Title Font
I have to admit, the font for “The Old Blood” looks like a children’s Dracula show that kids or young adults would get ready to watch or something. It doesn’t really fit into the whole Nazi killing theme. It’s more…Scooby Doo type of terror. Especially with how the font is off-balanced.
Menu
New
Obviously, this will start you in on a new, fresh game from the start, and with a new game, comes the option of difficulty settings.
- Can I Play, Daddy?
- Don’t Hurt Me
- Bring’em On!
- I Am Death Incarnate!
- Uber
- Mein Leben! – This is unlocked once you’ve beat the game at least once.
Chapters
If you happened to have missed some things in certain chapters, then you can go back through and try to find them without having to do the game all over again. And since you can’t save the game manually, that’s also why this is here as a choice.
Options
The options menu provides you with four different tabs to choose from.
- Gameplay
- Controls
- Audio
- Video
In Gameplay, you can fiddle around with the difficulty, as well as the loot visibility (if you want the loot to flash or not–probably not necessary if you want to get through the game as a priority, but if you’re a casual player that wants to try to find everything, you might want to keep it on), and in-game tutorials–in case you’ve not played the Wolfenstein games before.
In Controls, you can rework your keybinds, if need be, or just get acquainted with them. It’s also where you can stabilize your mouse sensitivity, or your controller/mouse settings, and toggle your aim, sprint, and crouch.
In Audio, choose your device from which you want to primarily listen to, if it’s not already on it, scale your master volume, voice volume, choose to have the music on or off, and choose which subtitles you’d prefer.
In Video, mess with the advanced options of all the in-game crap to fit your and your computer’s needs. Aside from that, pick the kind of display you want, your monitor, resolution, vertical sync, brightness, and FOV.
Challenges
As you play, you’ll unlock different challenges–(which will be noted in-game)–and you can come back to them here.
Extras
The extras will show you the collectibles you’ve grabbed, the credits, and your stats overall.
Exit to Desktop
Of course this gives you the option of sticking with the game and toughing it out or being a little chickenshit and bailing.
Yes, it’s almost just as insulting to your gamer pride.
Gameplay
Achievements
There are 50 obtainable achievements.
Plot
The year is 1946 and the Nazis are on the brink of winning World War II. In an effort to turn the tide in the allies’ favor, B.J. Blazkowicz must embark on an epic, two-part mission deep within Bavaria….
Part one of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood – Rudi Jäger and the Den of Wolves – pits BJ Blazkowicz against a maniacal prison warden as he breaks into Castle Wolfenstein in an attempt to steal the coordinates to General Deathshead’s compound. In part two – The Dark Secrets of Helga Von Schabbs – our hero’s search for the coordinates leads him to the city of Wulfburg where an obsessed Nazi archaeologist is exhuming mysterious artifacts that threaten to unleash a dark and ancient power.
Game Length
If you’re planning on doing a straight run just through the storyline without really bothering to look for collectibles or search the area for any kind of stuff to read for lore, then your play time will more than likely fall in the range of 6 hours.
But if you’re planning for a completionist, like, 100% completionist, with challenges done and storyline done and achievements done and collectibles all found, then expect a bit longer of a game, perhaps, depending on which difficulty you stick with.
For 100% completionist, How Long to Beat says the average is 16 hours.
That’s a bit of a time difference, yeah?
Replay Value
With the difficulty setting of Mein Leben!, there’s certainly some replay value to test your skills to see if you can actually make it through the end without dying at least once. Not only that, but if you’re a collector of all things and you failed to collect certain things within specific chapters, then there’s another reason to replay at least some portions of the game, even if you don’t want to play the whole thing.
Finally, there are the challenges to complete. Another reason to come back to the game after you’ve completed it.
So yeah, I’d say there’s some replay value to it.
Genre(s)
There’s a whole lot of action in Wolfenstein: The Old Blood as you run around a variety of battlefields when stealth fails to keep you out of sight. You’ll be running and sliding behind barriers for protection, or simply shooting and running back and forth to juke certain enemies.
Either way, the action honestly comes from the shooter scenario.
Your main weapons are going to be your guns, but you also have a knife, and at certain points in the game, your main weapon will be a pipe.
Hope your aim’s better than theirs.
There’s no jumpscare to be wary of in-game, and I wouldn’t really label this as psychological horror, though seeing some stuff happen might really screw with your head a bit.
Instead, I’ll say that the horror comes from the fact that people are capable of the things that the Nazis do in this game. And like I said, seeing the things that happens, and even just hearing things behind closed door, knowing what’s going on, is enough to have that horror vibe. These people are cruel, and they don’t hold back.
You shouldn’t either.
Controls
I’ve learned that shooter games are best played with a mouse and keyboard, despite the fact that I don’t like playing on a mouse and keyboard.
Well, mouse I don’t mind, but keyboard…I just never use it for gaming so clicking on the correct keys fast enough is a struggle I hate dealing with. But as far as the controls regarding a mouse and keyboard, everything was pretty smooth.
One thing I didn’t like is when you run and crouch into a slide, you don’t stay crouched at the end of the slide. You’re standing up.
That’s…honestly it.
Combat
You’ve got 7 different weapons, plus grenades.
Now, they won’t all be on you during the entire game–at some point you’ll only have a pipe and you’ll have to make due with that weapon for a little while. The pipe can be used to bash in zombie heads when they’re close enough–that’s for a specific perk.
The two throwables you have are grenades and knives. Be careful of throwing the knives, as they don’t go straight where you aim–there is physics at play and they will drop from gravity’s pull.
Pay attention to the guns you have.
Some of them you can dual wield–make sure you hold down both buttons to fire both guns for this. Other guns have other perks to them. Like a scope for the snipe rifle as well as the rocket launcher or something. (I can’t completely remember what all the guns have, but some have two modes.)
Regarding the fights–I had trouble with some of them, I won’t lie.
But I stream, so I’m constantly chattering and glancing at chat from time to time and in doing so, I miss certain dialogue that proves useful. Meaning if you can’t figure out a fight, wait a bit and normally they’ll say something that gives something away. Once I noticed what the boss actually said, I figured out what to do.
That end boss though…that was a doozy.
Interactions
First off, as mentioned at the start, there’s an option in the menu’s “Option” settings where you can choose to have certain objects have a glow to them or not, in order to see them better. Aside from that, in order to interact with something, you’ll need to actually use your bound key to pick it up.
A lot of people have complained in Wolfenstein: The New Order regarding this, and I have no doubt that they still probably complain in this one as well.
I suppose they’re sticking with a more realistic outlook.
You don’t pick something up by running over it in reality. You have to manually grab it, and that’s what they chose to do here.
The different items you can interact with are newspaper clippings, written notes, collectibles, armor, and ammo.
Characters
Looks
As a 2015 game, the looks of the characters you come face to face with for conversations might not be the most realistically detailed, but they don’t look bad, and nobody (aside from the Nazis you shoot, of course) look the same. They all stand out in some way from one another, and there are no reskins, as far as the primary protagonists/antagonists you meet.
Voice Acting
Personally, I think the voice-acting is all on-point. Nobody was too annoying or seemed too off for their character model.
Lip-sync
The lips-syncing is actually pretty spot on. Their facial expressions when they talk are great as well.
Abilities
Instead of abilities in Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, you get perks, and in order to obtain the perks, you’ll have to complete certain…I don’t know, let’s say “goals” the game sets for you. Such as a certain number of head explosions made by the pipe. That’s basically for when the zombies come into play.
On my first playthrough, I didn’t get all the perks because I was greedy with my weapon ammunition on certain guns. Not to mention I didn’t realize how short this game was going to be compared to The New Order.
Narrative
Voice Acting
The narrative comes from the character you play as–Blazkowicz. Definitely nothing bad to say about his musings in this game.
Subtitles
I like the fact that you can choose to not just enable or disable all subtitles, but there’s also a choice to show the subtitles simply for the foreign language.
Graphics
Style
Not much to say here, except that they went for realism with their graphics, for the most part.
And the reason I say “for the most part” is because there are some instances where you can take a nap in-game and it’ll take you back into the past days of Wolfenstein 3D, with a more pixel-based style. It’s the best kind of nostalgia nap, despite it being a nightmare for B.J.
Soundtrack
Background Music
You have the option of turning off the music, which I assume is meant for those who want to stream and possibly upload to YouTube without being demonetized in the process.
The one thing I liked about the background music is during battles it’d initiate, and once the last enemy died, the music would end, so you’d know that was it.
Ambiance
I mean, the main ambiance I remember from this game are the screams from certain areas with the dogs. But there are also the electrical areas with the static sounds. The sound of footsteps. Flying drones.
I mean, if there’s ambiance to be had, then it’s probably there. Otherwise, it’s pretty quiet with your main focus on listening to the footsteps of nearby enemies.
Sound Effects
The sound effects are great, or prying things open with the pipe, you grunting from falling from a large height, your footfalls. The breaking of boxes and even the underwater sections where you’re swimming.
They really didn’t miss much.
Final Thoughts
Did anyone else feel like this game had a more Tomb Raider feel than a Wolfenstein one? Maybe in like the first chapter it was Nazi based with the whole Castle Wolfenstein and trying to find and save our comrade, but once the second chapter came into play and the zombies popped out of the ground, the Nazis flew out the window.
Sure, they were still there.
I mean, they were the zombies we were primarily killing, for the most part, but come on. A possible artifact that was hid away and buried beneath a crypt. We have a pipe to help us scale specific gravelly walls. A gas that turns the dead undead because of some curse maybe?
It just screams The Mummy/Tomb Raider.
They must’ve really wanted to be part of the zombie apocalypse fad to create such a storyline that…just didn’t make sense in the grand scheme of things.
