Wolfenstein: The New Order
RRP: $59.99 (PC) | Website: www.wolfenstein.com
H
ow’d you like a brief history
lesson? If you answered no, I
apologise in advance because
you’re about to get one anyway.
Wolfenstein wasn’t always a firstperson shooter. The series began
its life as a World War II-era topdown stealth game with the original
Castle Wolfenstein, released by
Muse Software in 1981. Although
crude by today’s standards, its
stealth-oriented gameplay was
impressively innovative at the
time, and it successfully spawned a
sequel (Beyond Castle Wofenstein)
three years later.
More than a decade after
the original game’s launch, id
Software took the concept and
reimagined it as something else
48 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014
entirely, releasing Wolfenstein 3D in
1992 to widespread critical acclaim
and immense commercial success.
It traded subtlety and stealth for
brutal, fast-paced action in threedimensional environments. Today
its considered the grandfather of
the FPS genre, establishing genre
conventions that would become the
basis for what the gaming world
expected of shooters. With a legacy
like that, it’s easy to understand why
Wolfenstein: The New Order needed
to be something special. And while
I really enjoyed Raven Software’s
Wolfenste