Eurogamer

It's easy to underestimate the humble door. You open it, you go through. Sometimes, you must find the key first, and for many games, that's the whole extent of the player's interactions with doors. They're something to get past, something that cordons off one bit from the next bit. A simple structural element, of special interest to level designers, but not the ones who turn the knobs.

And yet, the fundamental nature of doors that makes them seem so mundane also imbues them with a kind of magic. How do I open it? And what could be behind it? A good door is a locus of challenge and mystery; mystery that could give way to delight, wonder, or even a good scare. A good door is a teasing paradox that does everything in its power to entice and invite, but also puts up a decent effort to keep you out, at least long enough to intrigue and fire up your imagination.

Some games highlight the versatility of doors by turning them into especially dense knots in the possibility space. In games like Thief, Dishonored, Prey, Deus Ex or Darkwood, doors can be lockpicked, hacked, blown to bits or cleverly circumvented. In emergencies, they can be barricaded, blocked by heavy objects or even taken off the electric grid. For the tactically minded, they can serve as choke points to lure enemies into traps or ambushes, while the patient can use keyholes to spy on the unsuspecting, or simply get close enough to a door to eavesdrop on an important conversation.

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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

The Wolfenstein series is getting a VR game. Wolfenstein Cyberpilot casts players as hackers who can take over Nazi technology and turn it on its masters.

Cyberpilot was announced at Bethesda's E3 Showcase. There's no word on platforms so far, but the game will be playable at the show.

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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Picture for a moment the triple-A hero. He is Kratos grappling a gigantic serpent on mighty waves; he is Call of Duty's Jack Mitchell acquiring a magic robot arm at his best friend's funeral. Sporting abs (or guns) that shine like justice, he is fast, deadly and remorseless. At his logical conclusion, the triple-A hero is Kurtz from Apocalypse Now sat in the dark jungle, whispering tales of annihilation, a catalogue of army medals in his back-pocket.


In film, the only recourse left for the Stallones and Lundgrens of 80s fame is parody. These days we tend toward John Wick over The Terminator, although key traits - unquenchable bloodlust, highly efficient - still remain.


This is not the case in games, where hyper-masculine juggernauts abound. Wolfenstein series hero BJ Blazkowicz - lumbering toward Nazi henchmen like a haunted steamroller - is the perfect example. He's a one-man army wrought by the gods of steroidal fury.

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Wolfenstein: The New Order

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus was a rip-roaring science-fiction romp through an alternate history. It was, as Edwin more eloquently said in his Wolfenstein 2 review, "vicious, affecting, witty, spaced-out, crude, inventive, morbid and for the most part, a success."

But while we all merrily mashed Nazis in 1960s America, developers at MachineGames cringed at a parade of things we didn't see - the "I"s which weren't dotted, the "T"s uncrossed. Andreas jerfors was one such developer, the senior game designer for Wolfenstein 2, and in a talk at Digital Dragons 2018 in Poland last week he outlined what he thought went well, and what he thought didn't.

Take stealth, for instance. The idea was for Wolfenstein 2 to cater to three playstyles: mayhem, tactical and stealth. The first two were fine but stealth was weak. "Sometimes it felt inconsistent," jerfors said in his talk. Enemies discovered you too easily and too often, and you'd be left with no choice but to fight. "We didn't spend enough resources and attention on stealth." He thinks it's because not enough people believed in stealth across the company so it didn't have the creative buy-in it needed to really work.

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Destiny of Ancient Kingdoms™

Apparently speedrunning - racing to finish a game as fast as possible - is quite popular. Of course it is - where have you been? Haven't you heard of the charity speedrunning marathons Games Done Quick?

Speedrunning involves not only knowing every nook and cranny of a game but also how to cut its corners and even break it, if needs be. Take Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus - speedrunners discovered you can skip an entire boss fight with the Citadel/Zitadelle by simply running right past it. But the discovery wasn't the shock to developer MachineGames you might think.

"That might look like it's incidental, but the boss [executive producer Jerk Gustafsson] actually wanted - he likes for people to be able to speedrun the game," said senior game designer Andreas jerfors during his talk at Digital Dragons 2018. "Me, as the designer of the Citadel, I don't, because I want people to play my content!"

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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

The Deeds of Captain Wilkins - the final piece of season pass downloadable content for Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus - will be released tonight. It arrives midnight local time on PS4 and Xbox One, and 7pm ET/11pm GMT on Steam.


As the title suggests, The Deeds of Captain Wilkins puts you in the boots of, well, Captain Wilkins. "On the run since the Nazi war machine levelled Manhattan with an atom bomb, Wilkins returns home to reunite with an old comrade and dismantle the deadliest weapon ever made - the Sun Gun," the PlayStation Store description reads. "Grab your guns and deploy the Battlewalker to gain tactical advantage as you infiltrate Alaska's Nazi-fortified Kodiak Island and crush Operation Black Sun."

The Deeds of Captain Wilkins costs 8/$10 alone, or comes as part of the 18 season pass (currently 10.79 on the PS Store). Also included are Episode Zero; The Adventures of Gunslinger Joe; and the Diaries of Agent Silent Death.

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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

The Nintendo Switch port of Doom was remarkable (although not perfect) and the good news this morning is the team responsible for it, Panic Button, appears to be handling the Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus Switch conversion as well.

"It's the same as the Doom studio," MachineGames' Tommy Tordsson Bjork told GameReactor at the Fun & Serious conference in Spain. "It's the same people," added MachineGames' Andreas jerfors.

jerfors went on: "They're experts at the Switch and now they're experts with the [id Tech 6] engine so we work with them, and the Doom version turned out to be really kickass on the Switch so I think Wolf will be the same."

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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus


A note from the editor: Jelly Deals is a deals site launched by our parent company, Gamer Network, with a mission to find the best bargains out there. Look out for the Jelly Deals roundup of reduced-price games and kit every Saturday on Eurogamer.

Update 8:39 pm: The cheap get cheaper. Amazon UK's Black Friday offers have now gone live and in amongst the bounty of deals is a boxed PC copy of Wolfenstein 2 for only 16.49. You can also find copies of The Evil Within 2 for 20.99 on consoles.

Original post: Perhaps it was inevitable that Bethesda's latest release - Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus - would see a discount this Black Friday. Given the company's track record this year of releasing games and discounting them mere weeks after launch, both Prey and The Evil Within 2 have been through this and now it's BJ Blazkowicz's turn.

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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

First-person Nazi-shooter Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is getting a "free trial" on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, starting today.

The free trial (or "demo", if you're an old-fashioned sort like me) should be available now on Steam, the PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Games Store, and will let you play through Wolfenstein 2's entire first level.

If you download the trial and like it enough to want to embark on the full-fat Nazi-punching adventure, Bethesda notes that your save game will carry over to the proper game.

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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Bethesda has announced releases dates for the three remaining episodes in Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus' story-based season pass DLC, The Freedom Chronicles.

Each new episode lets you experience Wolfenstein's Nazi occupation of America through the eyes of different resistance fighters. You'll explore the ruins of Chicago (and, apparently, space) as professional quarterback Joseph Stallion, you'll infiltrate Nazi bunkers in California as ex-OSS agent and assassin Jessica Valiant, and head to Alaska as the heroic Captain Gerald Wilkins, in a bid to thwart the Nazis' Operation Black Sun.

The Freedom Chronicles' opening salvo - known as Episode Zero - is already out, and introduces Stallion, Valiant, and Wilkins. It was made available as part of Wolfenstein 2's pre-order purchases, and is also included in The Freedom Chronicles season pass.

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