B.J. Blazkowicz is a tough cookie. He proved this again last week while I was invited to play a preview version of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus at the Bethesda Softworks Benelux offices.

This hands-on preview contains spoilers for the first mission ‘The Reunion’ and midgame mission ‘Roswell’.

If you remember the ending of The New Order, you won’t be surprised that at the beginning of The New Colossus our hero once again wakes up from a coma. He doesn’t have much time to catch his breath however, because Frau Engel has found your stolen submarine and will slaughter the rest of your Kreisau Rebels to get to you.

This dire situation gets even worse when you find out that Terror Billy, the Nazi’s ‘pet name’ for Blazkowicz, can’t even walk and is bound to a wheelchair. This is a surprising opening for a shooter that’s known for its fast action. By slightly restricting your freedom of movement, you immediately get a sense of the danger you’re in. You need to get the hell out of there. Now.

Because you’re severely weakened at the start of the game, it’s not very smart to dive head first into each firefight. The submarine is a labyrinth full of boobytraps that can be used against your foes. This doesn’t mean that the game suddenly became a stealth-game or a tactical shooter, but the slow pace of the opening mission serves as a good warm-up for the brutal action later in the game. And according to standard Wolfenstein tradition those boobytraps ain’t just your everyday mine our bomb, but microwaves that turn victims into a pulpy mess. This is the first sign that the unique mix between seriousness and over-the-top comedy, that came to define the series, is still intact in this sequel.

This becomes even more clear at the end of the first mission. A juicy cutscene shows how Blazkowicz surrenders himself to Frau Engel in the hope of saving the rest of his crew. The real star of this scene however, is her Engel’s daughter Sigrun. This tender soul clearly doesn’t fit in her too tight Nazi outfit and the constant humiliations by her mother have taken a severe toll on her self-esteem. When she gets the parental order to take of a rebel’s head with an axe, the situation quickly becomes very tense and funny at the same time.

This tension between razor sharp and foolish can be felt even more in the second mission of the Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus demo. Dressed up as a firefighter Blazkowicz needs to deliver a portable nuke to the city of Roswell and blow up an underground Nazi base. In the first part of the mission you walk around in the streets, hoping to find your informant in a local diner. In the streets you come across hilarious conversations between KKK members and a German soldier who is trying to teach them some basic German. Or a Herr Commandant that absolutely loves strawberry milkshakes. Luckily for us he gets shot in the head just as he is about to expose us. Once you’re in the clear, your paranoid saviour Super Spesh shows you a secret passage to the catacombs of Area 52. And this is where the game really gets rocking.

Just as in the previous game you can dual wield weapons. In Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus however you can freely combine different types of weapons. Take for example the deadly combo of a pistol in your left hand and a rocket launcher in your right. Or my favorite: a machinegun and a shotgun at the same time. Bullets for the long range targets and buckshot for however dares to come close. You control both weapons with the left and right triggers or mousebuttons. You’ll never again have to waste valuable time switching weapons in the heat of battle. More traditional players who like the extra accuracy of aiming down sights can still use one weapon at a time.

And being able to aim and shoot properly is an absolute must in this game. During the ‘Roswell’ mission you infiltrate a train station, hijack a train, take over a base and barely escape a nuclear explosion. All the while you are hunted by genetically modified soldiers, flying AI, Nazi’s in robotsuits and even a huge Mech. You do have the option to silently take down officers so they can’t call in reinforcements, but that stealthy approach can quickly go sideways and lead to even more bloodshed.

All in all it looks like Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is on the right track to gracefully combine the brutality of intense firefights with smart humour and slapstick. Add some unforgettable characters in the mix and it’s clear that the developer MachineGames knows exactly what made the previous games a success, and is aiming to turn it up a big notch.

Disclaimer: this post is a direct translation from the Dutch Wolfenstein 2 preview I wrote for Eurogamer Benelux. The videos included in the article are also recorded by me for the Eurogamer Benelux YouTube channel. I’m not a native English speaker, so linguistic suggestions and corrections are greatly appreciated!

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Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus hands-on: Masterful mix of brutality and humor

Enjoyed this post? Feel free to upvote and follow @gamesjoyce !