The news that Wolfenstein 3 is in the works is music to my ears. Iāve long been a fan of Sweden-based MachineGamesā take on Wolfenstein, which transforms B.J. Blazkowiczās one-man war on occult-powered Nazis into a grisly and moving narrative about the strength of family and communities while finding oneself amidst endless conflict. Wolfenstein 2 showed the importance of resisting the narrative that fascism can and will win. If I have one concrete hope for a potential sequel, itās that it doesnāt ease up on the gas.
The first of these games, Wolfenstein: The New Order is really good, as is its prequel, The Old Blood. Their shooting chops have always been up to snuff and their unflinching narratives were a breath of fresh air at a time when FPS fare was beginning to feel a little same-y. They had a stylish verve that was becoming all-too uncommon and paired B.J. with the likes of alt-history takes on Jimi Hendrix and Nikola Tesla. Besides that, it was also refreshingly novel to play an FPS about Nazis at a time where it seemed like most of the genre was ditching the past in favor of modern and future conflicts. It was 2014, and we couldnāt have known what was to come.
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus was an entirely different story. Arriving in the fall of 2017, The New Colossus struck like lightning. Its unveiling and marketing beats reveled in the joy of ripping fascists to shreds, while leaning into the dystopic headlines Americans increasingly became inundated with. It adopted the āpunch Nazis now, ask questions laterā ideology that emerged amid Donald Trumpās first presidency and the rise of the alt-right. More specifically, it leaned into that time that Richard Spencerāa Neo-Nazi and early figurehead of the alt-right movementāgot decked by an unknown assailant on camera.Ā
At the time, many criticized publisher Bethesdaās decision to appropriate some of this language and rhetoric throughout The New Colossusā marketing cycle. Fans of the games and companies involved openly protested against the game on social media, and even threatened to boycott it.Ā
During an interview with Vice News which centered on this outrage, Bethesdaās then-director of PR, Pete Hines, told the outlet, āUnless youāre a Nazi, there should be nobody whoās opposed to the idea of being against Nazis.ā When told that the gameās aggressive marketing tone might be poking the hornetās nest, Hines even doubled down, saying, āMaybe a little bit, but the hornetās nest is full of Nazis soā¦fuck those guys. Iāll poke a Nazi hornetās nest.ā
The New Colossusā narrative was as brazen as its marketing campaign and bold in a way few games have managed since, focusing on a Nazi-occupied America and how B.J. and his allies, the Kreisau Circle, begin fomenting rebellion at home. It is filled with sights that are still hard to shake, like KKK members in full Klan garb chumming it up with Nazi shocktroopers on the streets of Roswell, New Mexico. And it is filled with characters and pulse-pounding dialogue exchanges that interrogate whether America has ever really been the virtuous home of freedom its most patriotic defendants claim it to be. After all, America under Nazi rule in The New Colossus looks a lot like America always has.
Maybe the root of evil wasnāt abroad all along. Maybe itās been in us the whole time. And maybe we never really stamped it out because the blood and cruelty which it produces has always greased the wheels of this damnable, infernal machine.Ā
And yet B.J. and his allies fight like hell to dismantle it. They take on impossible odds, which manifest in The New Colossusā difficulty spikes and often brutal gauntlets and level design. B.J. himself even takes a detour into his past and confronts the earliest source of evil in his life: his racist, abusive father, Rip. And you know what he does? He exorcizes his demons. It is cathartic to be in B.J.ās shoes at that crucial moment when he takes back his life from Rip, who dies at the hands of his own son in defense of an America that, in his own words, has become āa white manās world now.ā And it is cathartic to take that rage and rip into Nazis for several more hours afterwards.Ā
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus could not have more perfectly matched the moment it emerged into. Its European developers definitely seem like they were tuned into the national conversation overseas and the growing political divide in America, but I donāt believe any of them would go so far as to say they predicted the exact descent into fascism which the gameās development and release would parallel. Wolfenstein 3, however, could be an entirely different story.
Even if Wolfenstein 3 is only in the earliest stages of production right now, it could still arrive near the end of Trumpās second presidency. And lord knows the material that MachineGames has to work with nowadays. That loser notion that Rip died defending? Well, that seems like the primary ambition of the current U.S. administration, which continues to stoke fires both abroad and at home in pursuit of this goal. Look no further than the way that the administration has continually sicced ICEāthe presidentās own secret police at this pointāon American citizens in a manufactured war on immigrants, rounded people up into camps, and even claimed the lives of innocents, as many saw with the murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on January 7.Ā
If The New Colossus felt like a heightened, yet prescient take on the politics of the 2010s, what might a follow-up in the wake of the declining American empire under a second Trump administration look like? Neither you nor I can really say, but if itās anything like its predecessors, it will be abrasive, unhinged, and rightfully angry at the rot weāve observed in the time since Wolfenstein was last in the limelight. At the naked abuses of power which dominate our timelines and drive our seemingly routine descents into madness. At the normalization of Nazi shit and cruelty. I could use a place to vent all that frustration. Maybe, just maybe, Wolfenstein 3 will fill that role perfectly whenever it arrives.
