Wolfenstein Youngblood is coming to month and presents a new take on the franchise since the reboot. While some are excited and some are skeptical about the game due to the new co-op nature of the game, there is another aspect I feel many are not looking at. That aspect being, the shift to a more arcade-like feel for the game.
While games like The New Order and The New Colossus had arcade-like elements, they were not as strong as can be seen in the trailers for Youngblood. A better example is The reboot of DOOM in 2016, which harkened back to classic run n gun gameplay. This is the feeling I get when I look at the trailers for Youngblood, and I get a sense of nostalgia for co-op run n gun games. It is a feeling I do not get from too many FPS games these days, which try and be more immersive.
Growing up, having played many arcade run n gun shooters both in the arcades and on consoles, I see a direct link between Youngblood and those titles. A game that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is finally willing to let itself hang loose and go all out for fun to take down Nazis. This has me very excited, especially since I had a hard time getting into the other games in the rebooted series.
I have always had an issue playing the new Wolfenstein games due to the alternate history setting. Being the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, alternate WW2 histories always was a turn off for me, but the games slowly won me over to an extent. Youngblood feels different from the others though, because of the arcadey feel I described earlier. It feels less immersive in a good way and I finally feel I will be able to truly enjoy these games.
Disclaimer: The above was the opinion solely of the author and not that of ROG or its staff