I loved the old '60s Batman television series when I was growing up (and hey, I still do). So even though this new "Blitzmensch" teaser for Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is more about setting the stage rather than showing off the game, it does such a great job of nailing the ambiance of its inspiration that it really is worth a watch. (And now I've got that stupid "Bliiiiiiitzmennnnnsch!" song stuck in my head.) 

Blitzmensch is in reality Olympic decathlete Dieter Goldblitzer (the spelling may be off a bit), who was struck by lightning while on a "routine transatlantic zeppelin flight." The incident transformed him into Blitzmensch, the super-powered hero of Frau (now General) Engel's favorite television show. 

"Blitzmensch and his partner Fräulein Fox save the world from capitalism, communism, and degenerates every day in this amazing show celebrating die Überlegenheit—the superiority—of the Reich and the Aryan race," Bethesda said. "Who will be this week’s baddie? The evil Money Grubber? The notorious Proletariat-Man? The vicious Mr. Yankee Monkey? Don’t miss a single episode of Blitzmensch!" 

I won't lie: They may be Nazi assholes but this is definitely a show I would watch. And if gameplay footage is more up your alley, there's a spot of that at the end of the video too. I can't swear that it's new—the specifics of "BJ annihilates Nazis" can be tricky to nail down across multiple brief, smash-cut clips—but I don't recall seeing a giant alligator in the mix previously, so that's an interesting moment. 

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus comes out on October 27. Developer Machinegames recently explained that it will be a "political" game, but not necessarily a commentary on "current topics." 

It’s a quaint slice of 1960s Americana: a little town, a busy diner, a chatty friend. With the sounds of a July 4th parade marching down main street, a blonde woman gossips with a waitress. As she turns to go, she stops and turns back. “Oh and dear, please let your auntie know that I’ve got several strong slaves for sale.” Her laugh tinkles across the sidewalk.

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus has gotten a lot of attention for its alternate history portrayal of a Nazi-conquered USA, and it’s easy to see why. Hooded KKK members wandering the streets and Nazi flags flapping in the American breeze make for dreadful images, especially because it's not pure fiction. But the little touches of smart worldbuilding are just as arresting, and they’re evidence that the MachineGames team feels free to chase bold ideas—by their account, that attitude is borrowed from the original Wolfenstein from 1992.

“We decided to focus specifically on the original Wolfenstein 3D [for inspiration],” creative director Jens Matthies tells me at QuakeCon earlier this week. “What's so amazing about that game is that it's so totally a pure expression of creative freedom. You can see that the people who did this didn't have a marketing department, didn't have to worry about a publisher.” The early developers at id were unfettered by what Matthies calls the “videogame bureaucracy,” so they were free to have fun and be ridiculous. That sense of freedom created a boss battle against Mecha-Hitler and gunfights with a gatling gun in each hand. 

In New Colossus, one mission puts a badly-injured BJ in battle with Nazis from the seat of a rickety wheelchair. While BJ wheels himself into gunfights, Set, the mad scientist from New Order, is setting up microwave traps that fry passing Nazis. The slapstick dopiness of Nazis falling for the same trick over and over is exactly the kind of silliness that characterized Wolfenstein 3D.

“On the surface level you can look at [Mecha-Hitler and silliness] and say, ‘oh that's very juvenile,’ but if you take a more generous view of it, it's people who just don't give a fuck,” Matthies says. Feeling free and unafraid of consequences made Wolfenstein 3D really popular, and that’s the ethos that MachineGames is deliberately emulating. If they like something, they’re putting it in the game. They want to microwave some Nazis, so they do. They don’t give a fuck.

Cavalier freedom comes across in some jokes: soldiers complain about “tiny American glasses” in the bar and visibly enjoy harassing a couple of hillbillies wearing Klan robes. But the freedom to make jokes also carries into MachineGames' unrestrained comments on fascism: A desperate young woman flirts with a Nazi officer with racist flair, dismissing jazz as “jungle music.” It’s the kind of thing that would make a PR department nervous and it’s exactly how Wolfenstein 3D would have handled it.

I’ve only seen bits and pieces of Colossus, but so far I think the Wolfenstein 3D approach is working. After dropping a Nazi with a fire axe to the head, I hefted two automatic shotguns and went sprinting down a train corridor, mincing Nazis with the speed of an industrial meat processor. The rush of noise and blood is so much fun that I don’t care how silly the whole thing is. 

Following 2016’s Doom, Colossus is the second game to run on id’s new engine, idTech6. The New Order is still a joy to revisit a few years later, but by comparison Colossus looks and feels incredibly smooth. The guns feel heavy and violent, and no matter how many pieces of shrapnel and Nazi helmets fly into the air, the game just never seems to chug or slow down. It has the same soft, glossy look that made Doom such an attractive game, but here that colorful perspective has been applied to Nazis and steel instead of sci-fi demons.

But while the wackiness and the worldbuilding are fun, they do deal with deadly serious ideas—one hopes without being dishonest about them, or treating them too lightly. That is also on  Matthies' mind. “One of the decisions we made early on was that we wouldn't cartoonify the ideology," he says. "In a way of course it's all exaggerated, but we didn't want to pull any punches on what that ideology is all about.” 

For a deeper look at how Colossus is handling the realities of 2017, check out our full interview on politics with Mathies, as well as Shaun's hands-on account from last month.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus’ downtown Roswell is a ticky-tack, Kennedy-era township replete with strawberry-frosted milkshakes, sun-faded storefront facades, and charcoal-armored S.S. stormtroopers on every street corner. Supersonic warplanes blaze overhead, leaving red-and-white jetstreams in their path. A propaganda film, "America: The New Order," flickers away in a movie theater. Two housewives happily chat about the slaves they’re putting out to market.

Nazi America has been a fixture of speculative sci-fi since the demise of the Third Reich, and out of context, Wolfenstein II’s dystopian story of resistance is informed more by pulpy splash panels than socio-political treatises. But right now, the billowing Nazi banners and casually hooded Klansmen absolutely evoke the carnage of Charlottesville. Over the past few months we’ve all been reminded that white supremacy, as a political value, is alive and emboldened across the country—and The New Colossus isn’t afraid to touch on that reality. 

In my brief time with the game at QuakeCon I found patriots and freedom-fighters, but I also found Americans who’ve found personal deliverance in Nazism and racial hegemony. Afterwards I caught up with Jens Matthies, creative director on The New Order, and asked him about what it’s like to be designing a game that’s fixed in the middle of a fresh national wound.

PC Gamer: How long have you known that you wanted to go to America with the second game? Was that a decision you’ve had in mind for a while?

Jens Matthies, creative director: Oh yeah, I think that was the summer of 2010 in Mesquite, Texas. We were in the offices and thinking we wanted to do something with Wolfenstein, and we came up with this idea of “well, what if the Nazis won the war because they access to this amazing technology?”

We always envisioned it as a trilogy, and when we were making the first game we had an idea of where we’d take the sequels. So it’s very gratifying to do a sequel because we seeded so much stuff in the first game that we can build upon now.

Obviously you were not expecting to be releasing a game about Nazism in America in the midst of our current political climate.

[laughs] It was a bit of a surprise.

So, over the past few months, what was the reaction to the team to all that, given that you’re handling a surprisingly relevant topic right now?

I don’t know, it’s an unexpected development for sure. It’s not something that has any real bearing on the game, because the game isn’t a commentary on current topics. But we always wanted to make… we are making a game about Nazis and Nazi ideology, so on some foundational level it is a political game. Or at least it is if you want to deal with those topics in some serious manner.

You are addressing aspects of Nazi ideology in this game that gets left out in a lot of other adaptations. You have people casually walking around in Klan robes. Was it important to you guys to address the true realities of Nazism?

For sure, I think that whole level [the Roswell level, which is being demoed at QuakeCon] was our… it was really important for us to show what mainstreet America looked like after the Nazis had taken over. It’s something we spent a lot of time thinking about. It might have been the first level we knew we were going to put into the game.

You have Americans walking around in that scene who are pretty sympathetic and on-board with Nazi ideology. The Klan robes, like I said, or the woman talking about the slaves she’s putting up for sale. Was it important for you guys to show a version of America with some of the white supremacist attitudes that already exist in the country empowered by the Nazis? 

Yes, but that was true for Nazi Germany as well. There was always a segment of the population who were “winners” in an oppressive regime, and they were willing to look past what the ramifications were to the other parts of the population. I think that’s what’s interesting universally, because I don’t think that’s uniquely German. Anyone is susceptible to that.

You just mentioned that handling Nazis in Germany is easier than handling Nazis in America, I’m curious to know more about the differences you had in mind from presenting a post-war Nazi United States vs. a post-war Nazi Germany.

Yeah, America has freedom as a foundational goal. This country is founded on freedom in many ways. And it’s the ‘60s, and historically there was a tremendous cultural revolution with civil liberties movements and all these things happening. But on a more personal level, it’s B.J’s homeland, and no Wolfenstein game has ever taken place in the U.S. So all those threads together I think would make a really interesting, and personal narrative.

As you said, this game will be thrust into political dialogue that you weren’t necessarily expecting. Is the team preparing itself for that scrutiny?

In a way, I guess, but I don’t think you can really obsess over that. Our goal is always to make the best possible game we can make, and what the outside world does with that, that’s up to them. If you worry too much about that, it’ll just mess up the process.

There are a lot of indie games that aren’t afraid to deal with some pretty hot-button topics. Wolfenstein is a Bethesda game, and obviously has a lot of triple-A backing. Do you think it’s important for more games on this side of the industry to take on these topics?

I don’t know if I look at it that way, but I think everyone benefits from more creative freedom in games. I think that’s amazing about Bethesda, they have such amazing respect for the creatives within the organization. That’s also why we love working for them, and making Bethesda games.

BJ will be getting a lot of help on his mission to cut a bloody swathe through the American Nazi regime in Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. The hard man with soulful eyes will be joined not just by revolutionaries he meets along the way, but returning allies as well. 

Anya, the nurse-turned-revolutionary, returns as BJ’s wife and an expectant mother of twins. The stakes for both of them, then, are even higher this time around. Other members of the Kreisau Circle, the group of rebels from the first game, have come to America to help BJ too. 

New chums include the head of the New York rebel cell, Grace, and the leader of the New Orleans outfit, Horton. BJ will meet them and other rebels as he travels across the US, trying to rally the resistance. BJ’s old nemesis is back, too. Frau Engel’s look for revenge, chasing BJ in her intimidating flying fortress, the Ausmerzer. 

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is due out on October 27.

Bethesda Softworks has released yet another cinematic video for the upcoming alt-history FPS Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. This one is all about chocolate, and the dangers of stuffing it into your face when your brother is a willing collaborator with the murderous Nazi regime.   

The video is taken from a fictional show called "Trust in Brother," which Bethesda described thusly: 

"Sometimes life isn’t easy when you’re Ronnie and you’re always getting caught doing FUN (Following Unlawful Nature) things in Trust in Brother—a heartwarming comedy show for the whole family. Giggle your hearts out as the gluttonous Ronnie gorges on milk chocolate bars. Chuckle until your belt buckles burst as Ronnie dances to degenerate music that threatens to send him into a spiral of drugs, crime, and political deviance. But whenever Ronnie stumbles, his big brother Dale will always be there to catch him—and inform on him to the authorities! With a resounding endorsement from our Beloved Führer himself, you’re in for eine großartige Zeit—a hoot of a time! Trust in Brother is filmed before a live studio audience."   

Videos like this one, as well as Liesel and German or Else!, aren't just clever (and note-perfect) promotions, they'll also appear in the game "as part of the world-building in Wolfenstein 2," Bethesda said. More videos providing "a glimpse into the world BJ Blazkowicz will be saving from Nazi oppression" are on the way. 

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus comes out on October 27. If you haven't already done so, be sure to check out our previews of the game, here and here—it's a matter of state security.