There was something of a shocking twist of fate in regards to “Wolfenstein’s” legacy coming into gaming’s seventh generation. Having fallen behind after helping popularize the first-person shooting genre decades ago, “Wolfenstein: The New Order” produced an experience that reminded everyone that sometimes the old dog has some great tricks. The sequel – “The New Colossus” – was too critically acclaimed, but not universally accepted from a gameplay perspective. Rather than strictly fixing what barely went wrong with “The New Colossus”, the joint work of MachineGames, Arkane Studios & Bethesda decided to innovate not in regards to the genre, but the franchise. At a reduced price, “Youngblood” promised to offer the same gameplay that made the previous games so fun while adding the option of letting friends work together in a psuedo open world. Having mostly enjoyed “The New Order” and “The New Colossus”, I was excited to see if this budget title could match or maybe outdo its predecessors even on a smaller scale.
Did I Complete “Wolfenstein Youngblood”?
Unlike previous “Wolfenstein” games, “Youngblood” allows the player to take control of one of B.J. Blazkowicz’s daughters Jess or Soph with the other either being controlled by a friend or the AI. Through various areas spread across a nazi-controlled Paris, the twin sisters have to find a way to save their dad who has suddenly disappeared with the only clue being that he headed to the “City of Light”. With this being a budget title it’s not surprising that the story and its main missions aren’t too lengthy with it lasting barely ten hours. By adding a leveling system, completing some story missions won’t be available to the player due to tougher (highlighted by the “skull” icon beside their health bar) adversaries that will force the player to take part in the rather mundane side quests and sudden requests with the latter usually being nothing more than a quick trek to plant a bomb in some random car or the like. The side quests issued out by the multiple characters making up the game’s overall hub area are just as forgettable as a majority of every other mission in the game with side quests usually resulting in fetch quests with no memorable character interactions or even cutscenes like in “The New Colossus”. There are also great amounts of collectibles ranging from cassette tapes to 3D glasses that are used as the game’s version of a model viewer. After realizing how uninspired the side quests are and a majority of the trophies being grind heavy usually connected to killing enemies or upgrading a specific weapon, my main focus was to complete the story, play some co-op, and destroy any destructible doors I came across late in the game for all that wonderful loot – a goal I completed in almost fifteen hours that would’ve been around three to four hours shorter if not for the necessary side quest grinding and terrible checkpoint system.
Did “Wolfenstein Youngblood” Live Up to the Hype?
The adventures of Soph & Jess are that of sisters trained for war and have the laughing style of stereotypical backwoods rednecks. Thanks to their mutual best friend Abby (daughter of Grace Walker from the previous games), the twins set a course for Paris where they have to shoot, jump and cloak their way through a Nazi-controlled battlefield while combing through Paris’ sewer systems & catacombs. Thankfully the gunplay is mostly the same as recent previous iterations, though noticeably slower to adjust to the co-op action. Both characters are given a small assortment of weapons to use that can be slightly upgraded with silver coins attained by opening boxes and slaughtering enemies. But even at a base level a majority of the weapons work incredibly well against lower level enemies, sound & look great. Complementing the prototypical, corridor gunplay sections of “Youngblood” that feature re-spawning enemies (who reappear & resume their patrol without the player even going into another section sometimes) are more open environments that look incredibly nice and work well due to multiple areas of cover, mounted guns and aggressive enemies who will come in droves if the alarm system is set off by the characters not being stealthy. Then there are skills that both require points to unlock as well as the player needing to be at certain levels to open up the deeper branches. These skills are broken down into three categories (“Mind”, “Muscle” & “Power”) with the stereotypical upgrades being available including better health & armor. Other abilities include things like picking up heavy weapons dropped by enemies or extending the time limit & cool down of the cloaking skills that makes stealthy takedowns a lot easier. Unfortunately without a lot of side mission grinding there’s no way the player can max out a character’s skill tree, resulting in planning by the player in regards to how they want their character to thrive. Sadly someone trying to focus on a stealthy playthrough can’t because of the co-op addition to the overall gameplay.
Co-op is not bad at all when a player is able to team up with another human. Players can join or host a session for random strangers or a specific friend. Jumping in & jumping out of human co-op play actually allows the second player to retain the progress gained in multiplayer for their single-player experience. There is the “Buddy Pass” in the “Deluxe Edition” that allows one gamer to buy the game and invite another potential player without the other having to buy the game as well; which is a nice touch. “Buddy Pass” invited players though do not gain trophies/achievements. Ally AI is both exceptional and disheartening. Whatever sister the AI is controlling will definitely step up and fight as hard as possible in the middle of a firefight, chucking grenades and throwing up hand (Pep) signals that gives the player’s character temporary boosts like more health (the player too can do the same for the AI to give them a boost); unfortunately those are the only positives in regards to the ally AI. With this co-op experience comes the addition of “Shared Lives”. Upon finding specific boxes around Paris, the sisters gain up to three Shared Lives that allows for a moment in the heat of battle where both girls are too hurt to continue can be revived for another round of action. If only one sister is hurt the other can heal them to avoid wasting a Shared Life. Sadly the ally AI will, at times, completely bug out and refuse to heal the player’s downed character; using up a Shared Life or even causing a game over if all the Shared Lives are gone. There will be many an unwarranted game over because of the ally AI’s stupidity – a problem made even worse by the fact “Youngblood” features a horrendous checkpoint system. When moving to different areas especially during a main mission a cassette tape will appear on the screen to give a false sense of security that the player has reached a checkpoint. Dying during a boss battle other than the final will send the player(s) back to the beginning of the mission with the same amount of ammo the sisters had when they died. This is a terrible implementation that punishes the gamer for no reason other than artificial difficulty.
Another bad gameplay decision choice is the addition of character levels in this game. While gaining experience points to upgrade skills is one thing, adding numerical levels to enemies is nothing short of frustrating. With the developers promising players would have the ability to take on missions as they see fit certain sections are blocked off by adversaries who could be one, two or even ten levels higher. These slightly higher-level enemies become bullet sponges to the point of being nearly impossible to kill even if the player has pulled off a clean headshot. To make matters worse is the addition of armored enemies only being damaged by certain ammo as indicated by the small icons alongside their health bar; which means what should be the player’s most effective weapon in a firefight against a gigantic mech may not be an assault rifle, but the introductory pistol that barely does any damage overall. With ammo only being attainable by fallen enemies & sitting on crates, trying to follow the rules of whittling down armor may not work to the player’s benefit as the ammo depletes and there’s no more to pick up in the heat of battle; forcing the player to use the ineffective ammo for chip damage. These limiting factors (an unnecessary leveling & badly designed enemy armor systems) definitely hurt the overall fun in regards to what made the series so enjoyable.
There are a lot more flaws associated with “Youngblood” including the terrible stealth system. While being able to cloak & become lucid for a short time does help complete a takedown, the ally AI can be identified by enemies and completely ruin a potential stealth run unlike Ellie in “The Last of Us”. For some reason there is no ability to pause even in single player where the game is closed to people joining. There is also no overview map the player can pull up when moving around the various areas with the player having to solely rely on the bland mini-map. Technical issues were few & far between, but definitely noticeable including frame rate drops, graphical inconsistencies & audio issues such as out-of-synch cutscenes. The story is mostly nonexistent outside of the opening cutscene, some short information dumps and an underwhelming finale. There are also microtransactions, as of now, mostly being associated with weapon & character skins. XP boosters (that can be bought with in-game currency) reinforce the unnecessary usage of a leveling system.
The core gameplay of “Wolfenstein” from these past two generations mostly remains here when bullets start flying, but implementations such as leveling & armor systems make the overall gameplay loop annoying instead of immersive. This proves to be a mediocre FPS that is made worse by being associated with a classic gaming franchise.
Should You Play “Wolfenstein Youngblood”?
“Youngblood” shouldn’t exist. For all its intent to innovate, provide a chance for friends to enjoy a “Wolfenstein” game together, and place some potential new leads going forward with the franchise, “Youngblood” has so many systems that hurt the overall enjoyment including unwanted armor & leveling systems. Add that to the fact there is a poor checkpoint system, the ally AI is inconsistent in regards to being helpful, and the story is forgettable. With a rather short campaign hinged on a level grinding being the only reason to spend more time with the game than necessary, there’s no reason this game is anything more than a rental. For those who have the patience wait until this game inevitably becomes a Playstation Plus or Xbox Games For Gold offering in the next six months – that is unless you like watching twin sisters bro-out at any given moment.
