Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus puts B.J. Blazkowicz back in the fight, and this time the fight is in America. MachineGames’ 2017 sequel to The New Order sends the war veteran home to a country that lost the Second World War and now answers to Berlin. Bethesda Softworks published it on PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. It is a first-person shooter, and it is one of the better ones of its decade.
Trailer, via Nintendo of America.
B.J. Blazkowicz Wakes Up on Eva’s Hammer
The game opens where The New Order ended. The Kreisau Circle pulls a critically injured Blazkowicz out of Deathshead’s fortress and destroys the compound with a nuclear cannon. He spends five months in a coma aboard the captured U-boat Eva’s Hammer, fading in and out while Anya, his love interest, is revealed to be pregnant with twins.
Then SS-Obergruppenführer Irene Engel attacks. She captures Caroline, and Blazkowicz gets himself taken aboard Engel’s airship, the Ausmerzer, on purpose. Engel orders her daughter Sigrun to decapitate Caroline. Sigrun refuses, so Engel does it herself. Sigrun tackles her mother, and Blazkowicz dons Caroline’s armor to break free.
He cuts Eva’s Hammer loose and flees with Sigrun and Caroline’s body. After the funeral, the group takes up Caroline’s plan: liberate the United States and use it as a base to free the rest of the world.
The setup is grim and it earns its grimness. The alternate 1961 here is not a costume. It is a country under totalitarian control, and MachineGames plays that straight.
Dual-Wielding Anything, and a Choice That Sticks
Combat sticks close to The New Order, with one clear upgrade: players can dual-wield any combination of weapons. Shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, assault rifles, grenades. Two guns means twice the damage, and the game lets you mix freely rather than locking pairs.
A prologue choice between Fergus and Wyatt alters the entire storyline. Some characters and small plot points are replaced across the two timelines. Fergus unlocks the LaserKraftWerk, an energy weapon that disintegrates enemies and obstacles. Wyatt unlocks the DieselKraftWerk, which works like a grenade launcher. Both run on fuel or electricity, refilled at dispensers found through a level.
Heavy weapons looted from fallen soldiers run on the same resources. They hit hard, slow the player down and draw hostile attention. Stealth and open confrontation both work. Blazkowicz carries a hatchet for silent takedowns, close executions, or a throw at a distant enemy. A cover system lets players lean around, over and under obstacles.
The id Tech 6 engine replaced the id Tech 5 used by The New Order, and the technology and animations got a complete overhaul. The team’s stated goal was to keep the feel of The New Order’s combat and refine it while giving players more freedom of movement. That shows.
A Nazi-Occupied Manhattan Worth the Trip
The most interesting thing Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus does is not mechanical. It is the setting. The team was drawn to the juxtaposition of America — a country “founded on the idea of freedom” — sitting under totalitarian control, and to how Germany would have tried to subvert American culture. The resistance cell hides in the Empire State Building, in the ruins of a Manhattan destroyed by a Nazi atomic bomb.
Here is the running order of what the game asks you to do, roughly:
| Beat | Location | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Prologue | Deathshead’s fortress | Kreisau Circle extracts Blazkowicz |
| Coma | Eva’s Hammer | Five months pass; Anya’s pregnancy revealed |
| Attack | Eva’s Hammer | Engel captures Caroline |
| Rescue | The Ausmerzer | Sigrun turns on her mother |
| Funeral | Eva’s Hammer | The group adopts Caroline’s plan |
| Recruitment | Ruins of Manhattan | Blazkowicz finds Grace Walker |
Three things decide whether this lands for you, in order of importance:
- Whether the tonal swing between horror and absurdity works for you.
- Whether you want the Fergus or Wyatt timeline — they are genuinely different games in places.
- Whether you play for the shooting or for the story, because the shooting is familiar and the story is not.
What the Revolution Costs
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a sequel that improves on The New Order without reinventing it. The dual-wield freedom is a real change. The Fergus and Wyatt split gives the campaign a second life. The Manhattan ruins and the occupied-America premise carry more weight than most shooters bother to attempt.
The weaknesses are the ones the series has always had. The combat loop is largely the same as 2014’s, and players who wanted a bigger leap will feel the repetition. Heavy weapons that slow you down and attract attention are a trade-off, not a thrill.
What matters most is the choice to set a revolution in a country that already lost. That is the part worth watching, and it is why this one holds up. 8.8 of 10.
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