WNO is set in the 1960s, only with the caveat that the Nazis won WWII. The resistance against Hitler’s army is almost snuffed out completely, so it’s up to BJ to get the fight going again. With his ability to hold multiple weapons — including dual wield, like with two massive shotguns, as well as don armor and get health packs that temporarily give him as much as 200HP of health, BJ’s ready.
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The playable demo was set outside London. Downtown London was tore down and the London Nautica was built. It’s a massive facility that, according to your contact driving you there, is used for flight and space research. Your tasked with getting inside, and his sacrificial diversion is intended to help you succeed. BJ carries a knife at all times, and I also had several other weapons at my disposal. A pistol that also had an optional three round burst mode, a laser pistol whose secondary fire mode can cut through fences to give BJ new paths to go through. I found an assault rifle that reminded me of the G43. A massive shotgun, and then soon after two of the said shotguns in dual wield, were found. Each weapon has a secondary fire mode that can be unlocked, giving BJ plenty of offensive options. The ‘Y’ button is actually mapped to “Favorite
Weapon” to help you quickly get back to your go-to firearm(s).
While wanting to stay faithful to the original, Machine Games (formerly Starbreeze) wanted to add layers of character to BJ as well. He talks in this game, and while a lot of what I heard was just macho one-liners, there’s the potential for a more interesting character than the series has previously seen before. Gameplay looks to be highly action focused though and isn’t likely to go beyond that, which is fine given the intent of this game.
Wolfenstein The New Order will feature several key NPCs, including Anya, part of the resistance and a “contact” of BJ’s. We were also shown an interesting scene with Frau Ingel that was actually pretty interesting and longer than I expected — this was a good thing. Adding memorable characters and scenes that aren’t just you running-and-gunning will make this game more robust.
Getting back to the playable demo now, after your contact’s massive diversion, you encounter a huge mechanical dog as you try to enter the remainder of the building. His blocks one path, but another path is available with your laser cutting ability. The dog ends up coming after you regardless and the only escape was to slide. You do this by running and pressing B. I tried to slide into an enemy to trip him up, but it didn’t work, for what it’s worth.
Anyway, once you get passed the dog, you encounter a few other Nazis that are reeling from the explosion that just occurred. Soon, you’re in the building, but the Nazis begin to swarm you with human and mech units alike. It’s classic gun-heavy FPS action with a variety of weapons and enemies to engage.
By the sound of it, WNO will be a PS4 and Xbox One launch title, but it will also be out for 360 and PS3 this year.
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