How MachineGames Should Make Wolfenstein 3

After the misstep that was Wolfenstein: Youngblood, there are a number of changes that MachineGames needs to make in order to bring fans back for Wolfenstein 3.

The series was gaining huge traction in The New Order and its sequel New Colossus, as well as the smaller prequel The Old Blood. The games had brought new attention to the series which had previously had a rocky and inconsistent quality. Youngblood threw this out of the window with a game that completely misunderstood what made the previous titles so brilliant, both from a writing and mechanical standpoints.

First, there was the choice to change characters, a first for Wolfenstein, which had primarily focused on BJ Blazkowicz. This could have been an attempt to inject some new flavour into the game, but it horrifically misfired, considering the emotional investment players had in the character, especially in the recent games, which had fleshed BJ out into someone players could really get into.

From a mechanical viewpoint, the addition of microtransactions, the open-world, the multiplayer focus and buggy AI made the game far less enjoyable to play than the games that had come before, which had had a fast-paced, run-and-gun tone.

These changes need to be made before MachineGames can make a game which can adequately follow The New Order and The New Colossus.

While it may seem obvious to say that the game should return to BJ as the protagonist, there's more to it than just the simplicity of BJ as a fun hero.

Players have played, at minimum, 2 games with BJ Blazkowicz. That is if they have only played the two games in MachineGames's reboot series - there are many more dating back to the original, 1981 Castle Wolfenstein.

He's a hero that has developed with the audience that has played him and, in the recent games at least, has become a character with deep emotions and dialogue.

In New Colossus especially, BJ has come to accept his incoming death and talks at great lengths to Caroline, or rather he directs his speech to the dead Caroline, about her recent death and his ever-present incoming one. BJ is a character with soul, a soul you truly feel in MachineGames's series.

This soul wasn't found in BJ's daughters Zofia and Jessie in Youngblood.

Aside from a few loading screen shots of them messing with each other and a handful of jokes, these characters felt incredibly flat compared to the developed character of BJ from previous games.