Wolfenstein Youngblood is the latest instalment in the very long long running Wolfenstein series of games. Developed by Machine Games and Arkane Studios (of Dishonored fame) and published by the legendary Bethesda Softworks in 2019, I had pretty high hopes for this game. However, like most games of this FPS genre, I now tend to wait for quite some time before purchasing games... preferably on sale, and generally about a year or two (or more...) after release.

The Setup

Youngblood is set two decades after the last Wolfenstein game (New Colossus) and is the first of the Wolfenstein games where the player isn't controlling BJ Blazkowicz. After so many games over the last few decades of playing as the same character, it is a bit strange to be playing one of the twin daughters of the famous Nazi killer.

Jess and Zofia are the next generation of Blazkowicz's, continuing the fight that their parents had started in previous games. America has been freed in the previous game, and Nazi Germany is confined to occupying Europe after Hitler has been disposed of in the earlier plotline.

After discovering that their father has disappeared, the twins (along with their nerdy friend) highjack a VTOL and two power suits and depart for Europe, hoping to make contact with the French Resistance in order to rescue their father.

The Game

Like most of the recent Wolfenstein games, Youngblood has a central mission hub area where you can interact with all the various characters that form the French Resistance. They will give you a wealth of side missions in addition to being able to follow the main storyline missions.

Most of them are French or other European, and will greet you in those languages.... and the twins will reply with a pretty jarring "Hey" or "Hiya" in an American accent. It pretty much sets the scene for the whole game... two "bros" (sorry, sisters) fresh out of America, causing mayhem and destruction in other lands in the name of freedom. Yep, another one of those games...

The world is split up into sectioned areas where storyline and optional side missions exist alongside randomly generated extra missions. The playing areas are really quite small and are supposed to feature multiple pathways, but I found that they were really not that exciting to explore and there wasn't really much that encouraged stealth over straight up run and gun.

The actual combat is also a bit unimpressive. It takes pretty much the same mechanics as the more recent Wolfenstein games... but adds a terrible enemy levelling mechanic from MMOs and other online co-op games. So, enemies in various sections are of higher or lower levels depending on the area.... which means that wandering into an area with tougher enemies will be virtual suicide whilst lower level areas will be an annoying pop-up shooting range. Even more annoying, enemies respawn... and you will need to traverse through completed areas a few times thought the game, which means that you will have to just gun down low level enemies over and over again.

Stealth isn't really a great option in this game... I could see that this might be a fun run-and-gun game if you were playing with another player... but even then, there are better games for that sort of online/local co-op FPS play.

Level design is cramped and not very inspiring... as soon as the alarm goes off, it is just run around and shoot. There is the buddy mechanic, where you can revive a downed sister... handy, as you will be going down quite regularly if you accidentally run through a tough zone.

There is a light RPG mechanic where killing enemies and collecting stuff gives you XP to increase your damage output in small marginal bites... and then there are various skills and perks that you can unlock to slowly power up your character or to open up new ways to interact with the combat or world.

Given that the game plays out like a MMO more than a traditional story based FPS shooter, you are just grinding to level up and get yourself strong enough to tackle stronger enemies and harder areas. Grinding is not fun... especially in this sort of game.

Likewise, you collect little drips of silver pieces and gold bars throughout the levels and by completing missions... which allows you to upgrade your weaponry with a focus on accuracy, damage or rate of fire. Not really that exciting, as you will tend to buff towards damage... after all, when the alarms go off... there isn't much point in silenced weapons!

... and the ever present collectibles. I HATE THIS STUFF! There is often very little point in most of the collectibles, they don't really add much to the character and atmosphere of the game or story... and if I could just avoid them, I would... however, they are also tied to XP... which is necessary for making your avatar strong enough to progress... unless you feel like grinding out some more fights. So, you find yourself running around tapping "F" in order to pick up anything and everything...

Visuals, Sound and Performance

Youngblood does look pretty though... the streets of occupied Paris are a pleasure to wander through and the cutscenes are fun to watch. I can't really speak much for the soundscape... it is not too distracting, but not really memorable in my opinion.

Performance-wise, I didn't have much problems at 1080p with my gaming rig. The computer that I used features GPU and CPU tech from several generations back, so any modern rig should be able to handle this. Keep in mind, it WILL require a decent GPU and CPU combo though... this is NOT a Chromebook game, you will need a dGPU at the very least!

My Thoughts

I really wanted to like this game... I love the Wolfenstein games, not really so much for the amazing game mechanics or anything like that. It's just a nostalgic trip to follow the continuing story that I have followed since I was much younger. The gameplay was mostly a something that I did to flesh out some time between the cutscenes where I would find out what was going on with Blazkowicz and his friends and family.

Now, in this younger generation of Blazkowicz... I still want to know what is going on, the narrative world that has been built up is stupidly fantastic and over the top bombastic... but I do find it entertaining. However, in this iteration of the series... the gameplay feels like a complete chore to play... instead of the tightly focussed levels, there is a tacked-on almost open world that seems to only take the worst of that genre, and tied it to annoying grinding. It's not fun... and I'm tossing up whether I want to slog through all of this to view the cutscenes and follow the story of the twins... or just to jump on YouTube and just watch the cutscenes without having to slog through the game.

Review Specs

Played at 1080p (144Hz) on:

Intel BX80662I76700 Core i7-6700 Prozessor (3,4GHz)
6GB EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING
GIGABYTE Z170N-WIFI
Ballistix Sport LT 16GB DDR4
Samsung 960 EVO M.2 512GB
S4 Mini Case (NFC Systems)

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