Letters and and newspapers in the environment paint a disturbing picture of normalization as Nazi Germany and America become one. A mother discusses her pride at her son joining the ranks of the Wermacht with a friend, while another woman tries her best to kiss up to an officer by turning the bigotry dial up to 11.
KKK members joke and practice their German with Nazi soldiers amid July 4th celebrations not of American freedom, but Germany’s victory over the Allies. Typical 1960s American values and traditions are combined with white nationalism and supremacy at an institutional, wholly govermentally-enforced level in Wolfenstein 2’s America, and the game has no compunctions about showing homegrown racism and bigotry being the catalyst for collaboration and cooperation by Americans with their new overlords. While locations like an atomically-devastated Manhattan and a New Orleans ghetto in the midst of being cleansed of all inhabitants are suitably dystopian and grim, the most chilling thing about Wolfenstein is its insertion of Nazis into traditional Americana. On the other side of this, American society in this alternate timeline version of the 1960’s is not a wholly oppressed, reluctant place. Several major groups are represented among the game’s cast, including a host of nationalities, people of color, the mentally handicapped and even a German unwilling to participate in the doings of the Nazis despite being raised in their world, rejecting her indoctrination and siding with the resistance instead. More importantly, however, the characters contribute to Wolfenstein 2’s overall themes and setting of examining what a world under Nazi control might be like.
Between these interactions and the cutscenes and in-game cinematics, Wolfenstein 2 spends plenty of time with its characters, and they are almost all universally enjoyable to listen to and see in action. They are encountered in gameplay only in the U-boat hub, where you return between missions to complete small side quests on board and can also speak with or just listen to the characters interact. Wolfenstein 2 mostly succeeds in these areas, particularly in its characters, a healthy mix of returning faces like Anya, Set Roth and the lovable Max Hass to new faces in the American resistance and more. Together these two levels are a great primer for what to expect from The New Colossus – zany, inventive scenarios in which to kill Nazis and richly detailed and engrossing places to kill them in, with a mix of humor both light and dark offsetting some thematic and story content that gets quite dark and unsettling. This opening level gives way to the next taking a much darker turn, featuring a surprising, grisly and disturbing moment early on and the reestablishment of The New Order’s General Engel as the primary antagonist of the sequel. What follows is a memorable and darkly comedic jaunt around the submarine in a wheelchair, one hand on the wheel and one hand clutching a submachine gun. Rescued by his friends and brought back to their captured U-boat HQ, he spends months in a coma before awakening to Nazis trying to recapture the submarine – and everyone on it. Picking up right where The New Order left off, Wolfenstein 2 finds BJ Blazkowicz beleaguered and broken, both physically and mentally, after the finale of the first game. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus takes this facet of the setting, a world under Nazi control, and turns it up to 11. It’s one of the many pieces of side content packed into the first game in MachineGames’ Wolfenstein series, and it has always stuck out to me as great chunk of character and world-building. She goes into unflinching levels of graphic description of the violent and often intensely sexual nature of her seductions and subsequent murders of Nazi soldiers and officials, culminating in a rather stark reveal I won’t discuss here. If you played Wolfenstein: The New Order (which you really should), then you may remember the journal entries detailing a young woman’s covert war against the Nazis in her hometown.
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