Wolfenstein: The New Order showed you could take an old style of game and make it feel new. Its new expansion, The Old Blood, simply feels old.
I loved last fallâs The New Order. A lot of people did. It was a seemingly old-fashioned type of shooter that ended up being one of the surprise hits of 2014 thanks to a few neat tricks, a commitment to the first-person perspective, and a strong focus on character
Itâs hard to believe, then, that this new standalone prequel/expansion came from the same developers and is set in the same universe, because few of those strengths are on display here.
Where New Order spanned decades and took us on a trip around the Nazi empire, Old Blood starts and ends in 1946 and takes us to only a handful of dreary locations. Where New Order was a game that often felt larger than life, Old Blood feels cramped and tired. Where New OrderâŠlook, if youâre already sick of me comparing the two, you may not want to read on, because thereâs a lot more to come. Itâs unavoidable when this is a prequel, sharing the same main character, same engine and same basic systems.
One of New Orderâs real strengths was the number of âarenasâ, sections of a level where the action opened up and players were free to sneak around, dispatching enemies via stealth and trying to avoid alerting commanding officers, who would sound an alarm and call for reinforcements.
Old Blood has those as well, but theyâre nowhere near as well-designed (theyâre incredibly linear), and are often almost impossible to complete through stealth. Itâs more a matter of how long you can last before going in all guns blazing, instead of avoiding blazing guns altogether.
Not that the loud, violent option is always the worst one. One of New Orderâs most under-appreciated systemsâlooting the deadâis still a lot of fun in Old Blood. While the game is happy to leave health and ammo lying around levels, youâll end up getting most of it from the bodies of the soldiers you kill. The way you have to dance over your kills, scooping up ammo in the midst of a firefight to make more kills, was probably the most enjoyable thing you did in New Order. It really helped to make that old 90s style of FPS design (which this game wears proudly on its sleeve) feel fresh, so itâs nice to see it remain an integral part of the design here (indeed, it probably feels even more useful later in the game after the story turns).
Probably the most enduring thing about New Order was that, out of nowhere, it was a Wolfenstein game with heart! It had a memorable cast with sometruly unforgettable scenes, and was also smart enough to give you plenty of downtime with those characters, so you could get to know them and their stories.
Old Blood has a few allies and friends you find along the way, but theyâre never around long enough to get to know them. Youâre never really sitting still for long, either. That doesnât just rob you of the time to enjoy your tea and biscuits, but also affects the gameâs pacing; all youâre ever really doing is shooting.
There really are tea and biscuitsâŠ
Which is a problem! The levels here arenât as pretty, unique or as interesting as they were in New Orderâyouâre mostly fighting inside a castle or just outside one, which all gets real samey real fast. With repetitive action and monotonous scenery, the whole thing gets a bit tiresome after a while. Old Blood is split into two chapters, and I actually groaned when I finished the first and learned I had to play through a whole other section.
And thatâs a pity, because Machine Games still has their distinct ability to make the most of the first-person perspective, especially with transition movements and kill animations. All that stuff is still in full effect here. Your pipeâand it really is the gameâs signature toolâis always coming in and out of shot, youâre always sliding in and out of doors, the whole camera shifts when you unlock a gate, etc. I wish more studios could learn from these guys, and their legacy from their time at Starbreeze working on games like Riddick
This large, dramatic combat area is one of the gameâs few, ahem, bright spots.
Look, I get it. This isnât a full-blooded sequel, and Machine Games clearly didnât have the budget or time to make something on the scale of New Order. And itâs obvious from the level design to the tone of this game that itâs an intentional throwback to older Wolfenstein games, especially Return to Castle Wolfenstein. New Order was a reboot, so Old Blood is circling that reboot back around to reacquaint it with older games in the series.
But the scale isnât an excuse for the grind, and the change in tone isnât a welcome one. Wolfenstein was rebooted for a reasonâthe series had gotten so stale, so lost in supernatural Nazi nonsense and boring FPS design that it needed a good boot in the ass. To see it return to those lost years, and be less of a game for doing so, is a disappointment.
