STACK#127 May 2016

GAMES

FEATURE

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Did you enjoy Wolfenstein: The New Order ? Good news. Machine Games are back with a prequel. Prepare to do battle with the Nazis once more in Wolfenstein: The Old Blood .We spoke with senior gameplay designer, Arcade Berg. ROUND TWO

The New Order was a good example of how to successfully rejuvenate a franchise and proved that there's still a healthy market for offline shooters.Were you surprised by its commercial success? Arcade Berg: It’s fair to say that Wolfenstein, as a series, had become a little bit stale and that there wasn’t much expectation from the gaming public for The New Order at first. We took a risk not including any multiplayer and instead focused solely on delivering a single-player, narrative-driven experience. Luckily, that turned out really well and the fans appreciated where we put our time and effort. When was the decision made to work on an expansion?Was it part of the original grand scheme, or did it follow in the wake of The New Order 's success? From the beginning we had always wanted to continue the storytelling around Wolfenstein and the universe of The New Order. In the earliest days of the project we had actually seen this as DLC, but very early on in development, we realised it had the potential to be so much more. Something fun that could really stand up on its own. Those who’ve played The New Order will know that the end of that game left us with some question marks about where the game series could go next. The obvious solution at this point was to look backwards in time to events that happened before the start of The New Order . The Old Blood is set back in 1946, which gave us a great opportunity to further develop our alternative history. We only featured this period of time for the first hour or so of Where did the idea behind The Old Blood originate? Same writers?

gameplay in The New Order, and there was still so much to explore!

weapons like the Bombenschuss, which is a bolt action rifle with a slower fire rate but is extremely powerful; and if you’re more into the up close and personal approach we have the Shockhammer, a heavy duty fast-firing shotgun. Don’t worry, you can dual wield it for extra glory. Last but not least we’re adding a completely new Game Mode called “Challenge mode”, which has the player replay one out of a bunch of the best combat scenarios from the game to compete for medals and points online. It’s a fun way to finally settle who’s the most bad-ass Wolfenstein player amongst your friends, for sure. The New Order used its stealth sequences well. Can we expect more in The Old Blood ? Something people seemed to agree on was that everyone loved the stealth and chapters where they could decide on how to approach the enemies, so we listened to the players and we’ve made sure that you have more options this time around. If you want to be stealthy, or a bit more tactical instead of running in with guns blazing, we’ve got you covered.

What are you bringing new to The Old Blood ? Quite a lot! We’re introducing several new characters on both sides and there are also plenty of new environments for the player to discover. Thanks to new technology we’ve been able to push the engine and make maps larger, plus The Old Blood comes with a completely new set of perks for the player to unlock. Of course, we’ve added a wide array of new From the beginning we always wanted to continue the storytelling around the universe of The New Order

weapons. One of my favourites is the Pipes, which is a great multi- purpose tool for B.J. (protagonist, B.J. Blazkowicz). You’ll get to use it as a melee weapon but also as a tool to help negotiate the environment. When it comes to the guns we have the assault rifle (46-T), which

How long will a play-through take? The amount of hours you’ll

get from it depends a lot on play style and if you’re planning on finding all the collectibles, Easter eggs and other secrets in the game. For the average player though, we’re

is heavy but still fast firing and very lethal. We have precision

estimating around six to eight hours for the first play-through on standard difficulty.

• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is out May 5

MAY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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