Wolfenstein: The Old Blood

I like the pace that the game presents and the freedom I have when choosing my course of action.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is a sublime choice for anyone who wants a further dose of the last year's game, even though it does not reach such high levels of quality.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is a short but intense experience that happily blends the innovation of The New Order with the tradition of Return of Castle Wolfenstein.

A juicy addition to a great game. It doesn't try to rebuild its foundations; on the contrary it uses them to deliver new portion of fun. That's how it should look, ladies and gentlemen. [Issue#253]

Not as nuanced as The New Order, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is still a great FPS. [July 2015, p.54]

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is an incredibly fun standalone expansion to one of the Best games of 2014, and in plenty of places is tougher.

Some might say that Wolfenstein: The Old Blood doesn’t add enough new to the series given the amount of time between it and the base game, but it’s important to remember that this is an expansion, not a sequel.

Never boring and often exhilarating, The Old Blood is another polished love letter to an older breed of shooter. While not as deep or interesting as The New Order, this standalone expansion provides enough visceral entertainment and interesting story beats to keep players more than engaged for its 6-8 hour running time.

Let's not blind ourselves, while being sold as a stand-alone, Wolfenstein : The Old Blood is more of a DLC than a real new game. By adding around 10 hours of gameplay at a very attractive price (20€), Machinegames treats us with a very nice add to the IP. A must-buy for every Wolfenstein enthusiast, a must consider for FPS gamers.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood should have more alternate paths and secret areas to uncover. However, both the stealth action and shooting gameplay are top-notch and the levels are fun to explore

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood proves that a little new blood is what was needed to keep the Wolfenstein series alive for many years to come.

Quibbles aside, The Old Blood works: shorter, more tonally cohesive, and better than its forbear, it's also – for most of its five of so hour running time – a better distillation of MachineGames' goals than that which preceded it.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood continues MachineGames’ commitment to offering classic ultraviolence with some sensible modern concessions and a deeply buried philosophical side.

The Old Blood is a great tribute to the classic Wolfenstein and "old school" shooters.

The Old Blood feels like two Wolfenstein games mushed together. The first half of the game is really good, but the enjoyment is truly lacking during the second half, when you’re fighting against bullet-sponge-y enemies and endlessly spawning zombies. [June 2015]

More of the same? No, better. Machine Games took the best elements from New Order and threw all the frills overboard. The result is a stylish prequel that managed to entertain me more than its big brother.

While not as good as The New Order, The Old Blood is a very entertaining, classical ego-shooter. The iconic castle and its surrounding mountainside make for a very immersive setting, although it’s not as depressing and dark as the predecessor. With its six hour story campaign, a lot of secrets and collectibles and a few (unspectacular) challenge modes The Old Blood is definitely worth the money.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is an old school FPS game, with frantic and intense gunplay, good variety of guns and some strong cliffhangers. However, has some AI enemy problems and poor stealth mechanics.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood represents the return of the action-packed gore and classic mechanics we loved from the 2014 game. The neo-goth and futuristic design, along with frantic gun and run gunplay make this stand-alone release a solid option for any FPS enthusiast. We loved to return to Castle Wolfenstein and to escape from it as we did in 1992.

Had The Old Blood been injected with more new blood, maybe it would have matched or surpassed the quality of The New Order. But by over-relying on nostalgia to drive the experience, it's well-crafted fan service rather than an attempt to push the series in new directions.

Old Blood is a good expansion to a great game. I wanted more Wolfenstein, and that’s exactly what I got here. Sure, it’s neither as inventive nor as heartfelt as New Order, but it’s a solid piece of content that’s still leagues better than most shooters. If you liked New Order, I’d recommend checking it out.

MachineGames took a step back in terms of design. The Old Blood is basically the same game as before but more action oriented, not as varied in terms of pace and lacking distinct ideas and settings. [07/2015, p.48]

The Old Blood is more boring and actually worse than the original in every aspect. But thanks to the fact, the original was excellent, even this expansion is still a very good shooter.

Whether it's Kessler's empathy or the supplementary notes you find, The Old Blood seems to have something to say about the evolution of games, but never arrives at a solid point. The sledgehammer that is B.J.'s philosophy always wins out, stranding the gray areas in a game that clearly won't give them the time of day.

Shooting Nazis until they explode is a fun diversion, but there’s a better game that does that, and it’s called Wolfenstein: The New Order.

Every expansion should be like this! Solid content and gameplay for a low investment. If you like Wolfenstein: The New Order, you will enjoy The Old Blood.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood places almost all its bets on the intense combat carried over from the game that came before it. The weapons feel great, and the arenas are interesting and filled with opportunity for some strategic creativity. But by doing this, The Old Blood misses out on some of the quieter moments that made The New Order so special. The Old Blood doubles down on blood and guts, but in doing so sacrifices some of its heart.

The Old Blood is a false start for Wolfenstein's life after The New Order, a creative step backwards that survives primarily because of the strong groundwork laid in the previous game. It will always be fun to fire these guns and MachineGames's presentation is still ahead of the curve, but this isn't the game you should play if you want to explore those qualities—that game was released a year ago.