A failed lady power fantasy

As a little girl I was always desperate to play video games with other people, particularly my girlfriends, who shared none of that interest. I had no access to the boys-only friend groups actually playing co-op games, so I had to make do with solitary gaming. That didn’t change even after making games part of my profession, since many of the same barriers persist for women that keep us from feeling invited to join all-male friends groups who do Destiny raids together, for example.

But when I heard that Wolfenstein Youngblood — the third installment in a reboot series I’d come to adore — was not only co-op but lead by two lady protagonists, I thought my prayers had finally been answered. Because, depressingly, getting to play co-op with another lady friend as two lady avatars remains a rarity in the world of video games.

So I tapped colleague Alison Foreman to play as the Blazkowicz sisters, Jess and Soph, twin daughters of former series protagonist BJ Blazkowicz. I coaxed her with the promise of murdering Nazis with our sheer lady power — and some really big fucking guns. The pitch was not a hard sell.

Unfortunately, the harder sell was convincing her to keep playing the game. Because almost from the word go, it became painfully obvious that Wolfenstein Youngblood would not be the lady power fantasy I’d always dreamed of. And some design hitches with the open world and co-op make it difficult to see the new entry as anything more than a lukewarm experiment.

Chief among the game’s problem is that, cumulatively, the Blazkowicz twins have about half as much personality as their father — who wasn’t a sterling example of a well-developed game protagonist to begin with. But at the very least, previous Wolfenstein installments aimed at giving him charisma, a backstory, narrative stakes, personal motivations, and human vulnerabilities that made him at least a likable caricature.

But sadly from the very beginning to the bitter end, the Blazkowicz sisters’ characterization almost exclusively boils down to being BJ’s little girls. 

I coaxed her with the promise of murdering Nazis with our sheer lady power — and some really big fucking guns

Their backstory is, “We kill Nazis cause daddy did it!” Their narrative stakes are, “Daddy’s missing!” Their personal motivation is, “We’ve gotta find daddy!” One of the first things said during gameplay, seemingly to empower you, is a reminder from friend Abby Walker (another daughter of a series character) that you can do this because, like, you’re the daughters of the man who killed Hitler! 

I could forgive some infantilizing daddy shit here and there, if it didn’t last for legitimately the full twenty or more hours of game that follows.

But, hey, killing Nazis with a girlfriend can indeed be fun as hell regardless. There’s no debate: Wolfenstein remains the Nazi bloodfest you fell in love with. Carrying over from previous games, combat still makes you feel like a big dick Nazi hunter akin to Inglorious Bastards. The critique of a poorly balanced difficulty curve in New Colossus appears fixed, too, at least when you play with an AI partner (which I mostly did). 

The problem is that the new imbalance comes from the game not accounting for different character levels between co-op partners. If you’re further along in the game than your partner (like I was), you’ll spend your time being completely overpowered, fighting most of the Nazis alone while your partner hangs back and lets you play the Daddy for a bit. 

Also as my fellow reporter Alison pointed out, the game tries to force a sense of camaraderie between you and your sister. Doors and loot boxes can only be opened together, presumably in an attempt to make you feel like you rely on each other. But like the Blazkowicz twins themselves, it’s hollow and forced, engendering more annoyance toward your sister than kinship.

Ultimately the biggest obstacle to playing Youngblood as a co-op lady power fantasy is that the sisters are such empty vessels devoid of all personality, it never feels like you’re playing as human beings let alone humans of the lady variety.

And listen, I don’t expect or want BJ’s daughters to be talking shop on nail polish. They don’t need to be feminine or defined by their gender. I assumed they’d be caricatures, just like their father. But what I didn’t expect was for them to be two of the most onerously dumb, dull, and obnoxious video game dude bros to ever fist bump their way through an online world.

To be fair, though, the sisters’ sorely lacking personalities stings harder because they bare the weight of being one of the few (if not only) lady co-op duos in AAA game history. I wouldn’t feel quite as cheated if I had other examples to pin my hopes and dreams on. 

But regrettably, they’re all I’ve got to work with. And boy, that’s a bummer.

Image: Arkane Studios, MachineGames

The larger problem stems from the need to accommodate co-op coming at a huge cost to Wolfenstein Youngblood‘s narrative. And unfortunately, that was really one of the only things keeping this series from being just another forgettably mindless third-person shooter game. 

After all, the surprise achievement of the Wolfenstein reboots has been their bold stylistic narrative style. It transformed the original, mindless, story-less classic shooter of 1981 into a campy, wild, rambunctious, character-driven, operatic, and even at times emotional journey. 

Wolfenstein Youngblood, on the other hand, is a bunch of repetitive, formulaic missions strung together by a few bland cutscenes that amount to an inconsequential story at best, and a nonsensical one at worst. The marketing tries to sell you on this being the most open world Wolfenstein ever, which is true, but only makes you question whether Wolfenstein games benefit whatsoever from an open world.

Sure, there are multiple paths to getting to the multiple missions available across several different map levels. But those maps are indistinguishable from each other, creating little incentive or desire to explore them. The multiple paths immediately turn into a search for the one of least resistance to minimize enemy encounters, get the hell where you need to go, and get on with it. 

It doesn’t reflect well on your open world if its design only inspires players to seek out an avenue to spending the least amount of time in it.

It doesn’t reflect well on your open world if its design only inspires players to seek out an avenue to spending the least amount of time in it. Worst of all, navigating those multiple paths in each map is unnecessarily, frustratingly confusing, giving you only a zoomed in mini map with mission icons placed in misleading ways that often force you to backtrack.

Forgoing a more linear narrative structure for the sake of multiple but uninteresting paths through an uninspired open world only highlights Wolfenstein‘s weaknesses rather than playing to its strengths of audacious narrative choices.

The main mission (so insignificant I could reach the end of this review without needing to summarize it) is to disable three indistinguishable Nazi stronghold towers in occupied Paris to liberate the city (“Like daddy did back home!” says one of the Blazkowicz sisters). There are other side missions you can carry out for fellow resistance fighters. But since none of those fighters have the lovably strange and strong personalities seen in previous games, it’s painful enough just sitting through their bland explanation of their generic missions, let alone actually doing them.

Still, despite its major flaws, what Youngblood does prove is that even a really mediocre Wolfenstein game still has a strong enough core to guarantee enough enjoyment. The lower price point for the game does also somewhat justify some of its less fully developed qualities, I guess. 

Wolfenstein Youngblood fails to fully meet the potential of its promising set up. But like a parent realizing your idiot twin daughters could’ve been so much more, I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.