Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

[Gez]

20 minutes ago, R1ck said:

(because calling him BJ sounds... uh, well, you got the idea)

I can't help but think that was intentional on the id crew's part. They were young and immature enough back in the Wolf 3D days, especially Romero (cf. Doom dev-only quit messages, Quake MP obits, Daikatana marketing) to find it hilarious to get a reason to say "BJ" repeatedly.

[Varis Alpha]

i guess that's why everyone in the game opts to call him William, Billy, Blazkowicz, or an alternation of the three (as well as his new nickname, Terror-Billy, in this game).

[Red]

So its Wolfenstein II because its a sequel to Wolfenstein TNO, but I thought TNO was a sequel to Wolfenstein, which is a sequel to RTCW, which is a sequel to Wolfenstein 3-D?

 

Or is it Wolfenstein II as in 1 and 1, 11, because apparently its the 11th Wolfenstein game? 

[Lila Feuer]

Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny are their own timeline, I guess you could call it 'Classic Wolf'. RTCW and Wolf '09 back then were the modern reinterpretations, so 'HD Wolf'. Then Wolf TNO and now Wolf II are latest iterations which I'd like to call 'Hollywood Wolf'.

However, RTCW, Wolf '09 and Wolf TNO all feature the Deathshead villain, who was largely in the background or played a small role in RTCW and Wolf '09 before becoming the primary antagonist in Wolf TNO. Wolf TNO also references events that occurred in Wolf '09 which connects them more than any prior game.

Although, RTCW would've been considered canon still had it not been for The Old Blood, which has you re-visiting Castle Wolfenstein, but it acts like it's the first time you've ever been there, thereby retconning RTCW entirely. Weirder yet, BJ makes references TO RTCW early on in The Old Blood, having said that he'd recall seen the ubersoldat prototypes before in the X-Labs.

You could say the timeline is a bit of a mess, but the continuity isn't Quake level of bad at least.

[Gez]

The Wolf timeline has always been a mess. Consider:

 

First they released Wolf 3D with three episodes. Then they made an expansion patch for three more episodes, "The Nocturnal Missions" (yes it's a pun on "nocturnal emissions", cf. immaturity in earlier post) which are a prequel to Wolf 3D (because in the third episode, you kill Hitler and win the game forever). Then they made Spear of Destiny, which is also a prequel to Wolf 3D. Is it a prequel to the NM or not, though? Nobody knows. (Or care, really.) Then there's the FormGen mission packs, which are sequel to SOD. They are sequel to a prequel. Where do they fit on the timeline? Should they even be considered canon? Nobody knows.

 

Trying to untangle the timeline from classic Wolf is impossible.

 

Also TOB is a prequel, too, isn't it? And it has these "nightmares" that revisit classic Wolf, too. Perhaps the simplest is to assume BJ is a time-traveler so the timeline is just as confusing to him as it is to us.

[Asure]

A short video:

 

[dsm]

I just consider the different Wolfenstein series (Classic Wolf3d, RtCW, TNO etc.) to be alternate timelines.

 

In one timeline, William Blazcowicz turns Hitler into a pile of gore, thus effectively winning WW2 for the Allies and he goes on to marry a Movie Star (I don't think Olivia in TNO/TOB/TNC is a movie star, though maybe she becomes one after the war?).

 

In another, he thwarts Operation: Resurrection (a silly plot by the Nazis to raise a supposedly invincible Prince with a rusty sword, who ends up dying handily to bullets anyway), in which the Nazis' Top Scientist is a version of Deathshead who hates the notion of hocus-pocus because he's a true fact-oriented scientist.

 

In yet another, but very similar to the one above (there was an "Operation: Resurrection"), Deathshead is suddenly very keen on the supernatural to the point of heading a project focused on "magic black sun" energy that stems from an alternate dimension.

 

Finally we have the Old Blood/New Order Timeline, where Deathshead is completely bonkers and effectively leads the Nazis in place of Hitler and where the allies lose WW2 despite (or perhaps because of) having a one-man-army, dual-wielding super-soldier like William Blazcowicz who's really good at killing Nazis, but seemingly not very good at completing missions.

Also, William Blazcowicz gets captured a lot in this timeline (happened only once in the Wolf3d timeline and the RtCW timeline). Oh yes, and this timeline actually contains two different, if very similar, timelines depending on player choice.

Edited August 16, 2017 by dsm : Spelling error

[june gloom]

The answer is basically this:

 

Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny are their own timeline and while later games pay homage to them they have no bearing, plot-wise, on later games.

 

Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein 2009, and Wolfenstein The New Order/The Old Blood -- this is where things get weird.

 

Wilhelm Strasse is introduced in RtCW. He's not the main villain, however; you don't even actually fight him. But he is integral to Nazi machinations with regards to Operation Resurrection, and his escape implies that he'll be back. The game also opens with the iconic scenario of escaping from the castle Wolfenstein, which you do in about 3 levels.

 

Wolfenstein 2009 can be safely considered a sequel to RtCW. It reintroduces and expands on the Kreisau Circle, and Strasse returns to serve as the final villain to replace the other guy, thus cementing his role as a recurring villain. Towards the end, Caroline Becker is injured and seemingly killed.

 

Wolfenstein: The New Order, when it first came out, could fairly be argued to be a sequel to RtCW and Wolf09 despite it being a new studio with a new concept. You even get a glimpse of the racially-integrated US Army troops originally presented in Enemy Territory. Strasse returns, and he and BJ have clearly met before. It is clear that at this point Strasse is BJ's own personal Red Skull. Caroline Becker returns, her spine destroyed, and she and BJ know each other and make direct reference to the ending of Wolfenstein 09, implying that Wolfenstein 09 happened -- except BJ has gone back to his old red haired appearance.

But then came The Old Blood, and it messed up the sequel theory, being essentially another retelling of the Castle Wolfenstein escape scenario and displacing RtCW.

 

So what's the timeline here? Simple: RtCW and TNO are separate timelines, and Wolf09 occurred in both.

[Red]

So in this new timeline it should be Old Blood -> 09 -> New Order -> New Colossus?

[june gloom]

8 minutes ago, Red said:

So in this new timeline it should be Old Blood -> 09 -> New Order -> New Colossus?

I dunno if I'd do that exact arrangement; I believe TOB was implied in-game to occur right before New Order, with 09 occuring first.

 

Think of TNO as a sort of "soft reboot" -- remember that BJ's appearance was changed slightly for RtCW and his 09 appearance was very similar to that, implying that they're more closely related than 09 and TNO given that BJ's appearance was reverted to look more like his 3D incarnation.

 

The existence of Becker (and Strasse) imply that the events of 09 did happen in some form in TNO's timeline. And BJ's rivalry with Strasse imply some history that we're not seeing; perhaps the events of RtCW (namely, Operation Resurrection and the Ubersoldat stuff, but not the Castle Wolfenstein/Wulfsburg incident) also have a place in the timeline, just perhaps not as presented in RtCW.

[YukiHerz]

Or it could all be a convoluted mess because that's how BJ remembers it, you know, when a grandpa tells a story, then tells it again some time after but it's not exactly the same.

[june gloom]

That's... one interpretation.

 

Anyway, I did some checking -- RtCW is set in 1943 as stated by the opening cinematic, 09 is set in 1944 or 1945 as implied by a few dates mentioned in-game as well as discussion of the Manhattan project, TOB is explicitly set in 1946 as is the opening of TNO.

 

I think my original conclusion is the correct one: TNO is the "soft reboot," where events of the previous two games are implied to have happened, but not in the way the games presented them. DC's New 52 relaunch did that with a lot of plot threads and backstories from the pre-Flashpoint days. After all, all those Batman origin retellings can't all be canon, right?

[Red]

I cant wait for the series to end connecting to new Commander Keen games.

[R1ck]

I hope they made a absurdly hard unlockacle "MEIN LIEBEN" Difficulty like they did in TOB. 

[Gez]

"Mein Leben".

 

Leben = life (noun)

lieben = love (verb)

 

[Koko Ricky]

On 8/8/2017 at 8:05 AM, Gez said:

I can't help but think that was intentional on the id crew's part. They were young and immature enough back in the Wolf 3D days, especially Romero (cf. Doom dev-only quit messages, Quake MP obits, Daikatana marketing) to find it hilarious to get a reason to say "BJ" repeatedly.

It should be noted that a woman (in fact, the woman who designed the Quake logo) came up with the "Make you his bitch" marketing ploy, which Romero begrudgingly agreed to.

[Asure]

3 hours ago, Gez said:

"Mein Leben".

 

Leben = life (noun)

lieben = love (verb)

 

Reincarnation of the grammar nazi. :D

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Spectra said:

Reincarnation of the grammar nazi. :D

Vocabulary nazi :p

[R1ck]

WELL EXCUSE ME FOR NOT BEING GERMAN LIKE SOME OF YOU GUYS, GODDAMN IT

 

Spoiler

please don't take offense on this. I'm joking.

 

 

[Gez]

I was actually terrible at German grammar in college. Declensions were my nemesis. 

[BluePineapple72]

Does anyone else feel the uncanny valley when looking at the faces of the characters in this game?

 

I mean, graphically, they look better than they did in TNO, but they still just look... weird. I can't really describe it. They look more real, yet they look kind of worse?

[DooM_RO]

 I get the feeling that the classic games happened but in a different way. The same could probably be said about Doom 2016.

[Red]

I still hold my belief that Doom 2016 is a sequel to Doom 64 

[Man of Doom]

 

I think I came in my pants when that new theme came on in this trailer. 

[Koko Ricky]

On 8/14/2017 at 2:15 PM, BluePineapple72 said:

Does anyone else feel the uncanny valley when looking at the faces of the characters in this game?

 

I mean, graphically, they look better than they did in TNO, but they still just look... weird. I can't really describe it. They look more real, yet they look kind of worse?

We've been stuck in uncanny valley since the early 00s, it's just more evident now. What happened is that this valley emerged as soon as it became feasible for rendering technology to even remotely suggest the real world. Perhaps the earliest example of this dates back to 1974, when the first "realistic" CG face was sculpted.

There are a few moments where, in spite of it looking a bit like a SNES Star Fox boss, the expressive animation with the eyes, brows and mouth subtlety remind us of our own humanity. These are essentially the first stirrings of the uncanny valley (in terms of human character modeling), but the moments are fleeting and mostly abstract.

 

What is happening now is that, as we near "true" photorealism, the uncanny valley becomes more and more disturbing. Skin looks like skin...mostly. Hair looks like hair...mostly. The lighting and shadowing is very true to life...mostly. The polygon counts effectively hide the faceted nature of modeling...mostly. It is becoming increasingly difficult to pinpoint what exactly is still off, and that amplifies the discomfort that accompanies the uncanny valley. Even in the best Hollywood films, it seems like we're stuck at this 98% level of believability, a trend that will likely continue into the 2020s until the processing power completely eliminates digital artifacts. Dramatic improvements to motion are also necessary, as even modern character models frequently appear jittery and unnatural when scrutinized. I would like to think that somewhere in the 2020s, maybe toward the end of the decade, we will have solved most of these issues. Motion will probably cause lingering uncanny valley issues for a long time, however.

[MrGlide]

The storyline you pick in the first game will affect the storyline in the new game.

[MrDeAD1313]

On 8/14/2017 at 3:15 PM, BluePineapple72 said:

Does anyone else feel the uncanny valley when looking at the faces of the characters in this game?

 

I mean, graphically, they look better than they did in TNO, but they still just look... weird. I can't really describe it. They look more real, yet they look kind of worse?

Look who's back from the dead

 

(or maybe I just haven't noticed you around lately) :D

[Edward850]

4 hours ago, MrGlide said:

The storyline you pick in the first game will affect the storyline in the new game.

How is that possible when you can pick both in the same save file?

[MrGlide]

I didn't think about that, perhaps I read what the dev said incorrectly. Someone asked if the choices from the first game would carry over to W2, dev said ya, and then the comments section got nuked with political arguements.

[Skeletonpatch]

Why does this have to come out while I'm in university and too busy to play through the game quickly, let alone afford to buy it as soon as it comes out? I want it later, god damn it! During the summer when I'll be out of university and back home for the time being! Transitioning from high school to adulthood sucks! I don't even have my PS4 with me! [Insert fifteen pages of childish whining about how my life sucks here]