Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is a strange beast. As a six-hour, stand-alone prequel to 2014’s excellent Wolfenstein: The New Order, it puts us through a grinder of tense, exciting, and memorable shootouts in some really great settings. But while The New Order shined brightest during its quiet moments of exploration and character development, The Old Blood never really gives you time to catch your breath during its descent to zombie-filled strangeness. That unrelenting pace makes it lots of fun, but not as thoughtful as its stand-out predecessor.
Taking place during the late ‘40s, The Old Blood once again places you in the blood-soaked boots of B.J. Blazkowicz, back before he saved the world from Deathshead’s alternate-history evil. The story this time around has you infiltrating mountainside fortresses, escaping Nazi prisons, and fighting waves of zombies, but nothing about the story ever really felt memorable. Like so many entertaining but forgettable shooters before it, The Old Blood comes across more like an automated shooting range, most notable for presenting you with diverse locations to shoot all manner of baddies in. From the torchlit halls of Castle Wolfenstein to cryptic caves underneath burning villages, you briskly move from place to place, and encounter to encounter. While this speed keeps the action hot, I really did miss New Order’s surprisingly effective detours into character relationships, non-combat areas, and story. That felt brave and bold in a way this doesn’t.
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Taking place during the late ‘40s, The Old Blood once again places you in the blood-soaked boots of B.J. Blazkowicz, back before he saved the world from Deathshead’s alternate-history evil. The story this time around has you infiltrating mountainside fortresses, escaping Nazi prisons, and fighting waves of zombies, but nothing about the story ever really felt memorable. Like so many entertaining but forgettable shooters before it, The Old Blood comes across more like an automated shooting range, most notable for presenting you with diverse locations to shoot all manner of baddies in. From the torchlit halls of Castle Wolfenstein to cryptic caves underneath burning villages, you briskly move from place to place, and encounter to encounter. While this speed keeps the action hot, I really did miss New Order’s surprisingly effective detours into character relationships, non-combat areas, and story. That felt brave and bold in a way this doesn’t.
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