Legacies

I’m previously criticized movie adaptations of games that subsequently jettisoned the games’ unique characteristics.  I view the recent announcement of Wolfenstein 3D’s spiritual successor - known simply as Wolfenstein - in something of a similar vein. 

Wolfenstein 3D was indeed an historic game, the first real FPS to hit the market; although it took Doom to really get the genre into the open, id obviously knew what it was doing.  That said, I’m really unclear on the motivation to revisit it: the game is not a remake, but instead a sequel to the multiplayer (and decidedly less silly) Return to Castle Wolfenstein.  As far as I can tell, BJ Blaskowicz is the only real component of Wolf 3D to make it intact into the new title - unless you count the vague premise of Nazi supernaturalism, which is neither unique to the game nor particularly iconic within it.  The game features a realism that was certainly not a hallmark of the over-the-top original, and the game mechanics themselves are also relatively new.

Partly this is a result of the fact that although Wolf 3D was a pioneer in its day, there is little about it that remains unique in today’s crowded FPS marketplace.  Yet as IGN notes, there is a whole host of gamers who barely (if at all) remember the original.  So presumably the hope is that Wolfenstein carries enough weight with nostalgic older gamers to motivate them to play the new game… without investigating how much of the old title yet remains.  Personally, I’d prefer a remake of a more obscure game that could do with the publicity and might feature a ton of the quirkier characteristics that made playing it worthwhile: Blake Stone 3 or ROTT 2, anyone?