Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is an excellent stopgap before the inevitable Wolfenstein 3. You can dip your toes back into the world and the new combat changes come together to create the best combat in the series. Light RPG elements help add a new flavour to the franchise as well. Jess and Soph are the standout stars of Youngblood and help lift up the underwhelming and largely inconsequential main narrative. The overall package isn't as good as The New Order, but Youngblood is a silly, fun, and gory romp worth experiencing.

Whether or not you enjoy Wolfenstein: Youngblood is going to depend on a lot of factors. If you loved the previous games for their narrative depth, linear story, and simplified gameplay, this might be a tough sell for you. Youngblood is still fundamentally Wolfenstein in almost every way that matters but, like its rookie heroines, it’s a little unpolished and rough around the edges. If you’re looking for something new, innovative, and daring, and can overlook a few flaws (some more glaring than others) then it’s time to suit up, gear up, and once again prove that the only good Nazi is a dead one.

Even if you only want to do the main missions and enough side-content to level up sufficiently, you’ll get at least ten to 12 hours of play. What’s interesting is the endgame, providing daily and weekly challenges, and allowing you to replay missions for extra XP. Solo this will become tiring, but with a friend? Any excuse to kill Nazis is a good excuse. [Issue#166, p.79]

Wolfenstein: Youngblood falls a step behind previous games... Which doesn't mean it's bad at all. The formula works as fine as ever, and there are some very welcome changes. You can kill Nazis with a friend, too, which means this games freaking rules.

It's all about the (still fun) gunplay, but the story suffers heavily... Youngblood, especially in co-op, is quite fun. Personally, I would have liked but fewer side quests and more "real" story missions, because the latter are clearly too short.

While it is fun to play through a Wolfenstein game with a friend, Youngblood feels a bit lacklustre when compared to its predecessors. Still, the gunplay is solid enough and the well-designed levels keep you invested. Worth a buy if you've got a partner to play with.

While I think I’d prefer the next Wolfenstein game to be more traditional, it was refreshing to see some new ideas here with Youngblood.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is some of the most fun I've had with the new saga of Wolfenstein games, but that came at the cost of the hallmark storytelling that MachineGames has become synonymous with. It's a gratifying cooperative experience that I can wholeheartedly recommend if you have a friend to blast through it with, but I can't provide the same sentiment if you're a solo player. It suffers from a myriad of issues that keep it from being something extraordinary, but that doesn't mean Youngblood isn't worth experiencing if someone can join you for the ride.

It is what it is — a reasonably priced spin-off of the series that is not bad, it’s just limited in its scope and replay value, though your mileage may vary greatly depending on who you have to co-op with.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a blast to play. The shooting is fun and fluid, and with a bunch of great abilities and upgrades to unlock, the game keeps you going for as long as the story lasts. The game has its flaws however: Stealth is imprecise, the enemies are overly predictable and the story truly leaves something to be desired.

Wolfenstein Youngblood is a pretty good FPS, with solid gameplay, nice level design and interesting cooperative mechanics.

In many respects, this entry feels more akin to an Arkane game and not enough like the Wolfenstein experiences we’ve come to know and love. At the very least, the future is bright, especially if Soph and Jess come along for the ride. Their brilliantly written and performed sisterly banter somewhat makes up for this largely disjointed and underwhelming venture into the franchise’s broader horizons.

Gunplay has never felt better, but the bullet-sponge nature of the enemies and lack of necessary ammo dilute what is otherwise an enjoyable game to play. Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a different beast from its predecessors. While some of it works, other aspects fall flat. Youngblood is a fun distraction with a friend, but if you want the full Wolfenstein experience, you’ll need to wait for Wolfenstein III.

There was a lot of potential in the idea for Wolfenstein: Youngblood but it feels more like a proof of concept for something bigger than a full-fledged experience....Youngblood is an entertaining game by its own standard, but it feels like its potential was wasted by decreasing the scope of what could have been an epic conflict.

A flawed but enjoyable co-op spin-off that’s unfocused and scrappy but still manages to find lots of entertainingly imaginative ways to kill Nazis.

Using everything Arkane can do in terms of level-design, Wolfenstein Youngblood offers an interesting new take on what’s a Wolfenstein game. But for a co-op game, it doesn’t have substantial co-op mechanics.

Youngblood starts off great, but fails to keep that momentum going. The level-locked missions and daily grind required to level-up and advance just don't work with a Wolfenstein game, especially since it lacks all of the social and gear upgrade aspects of the online shooters it is trying to emulate. This also makes the game stretch out it its already thin story to the point where you'll barely notice it's there. Youngblood is a rare misfire for the Wolfenstein series, and you won't miss much if you sit this one out.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is trying to do something, it can't. Shooting Nazis together can be a lot of fun, but without the dark and boundary-seeking humor, the strong storytelling and impressive cast, there is not much left of Wolfenstein.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a game with interesting ideas, but not so bright execution. The multiplayer mode makes the experience fun, but the level design quickly makes the game tedious.

There’s a sad irony in the fact that The New Order was so refreshing as it didn’t rely on tired modern FPS conventions like cover shooting and regenerating health, yet here’s Youngblood trying to get a slice of the homogenised live service pie with systems and mechanics that feel completely alien for the franchise.

The Terror Twins don't get the platform they deserve, but they put on quite a show with what they're given. [Issue#336, p.106]

Wolfenstein: Youngblood just never finds the right groove. The game’s needless RPG elements, microtransactions, and sloppy non-linear structure are obvious mistakes, but it also has some surprising basic level design and pacing problems. Wolfenstein: Youngblood can still be good, visceral fun in fits and starts, but overall, the game lacks the maturity of the elder Blazkowicz’ adventures.

Wolfenstein Youngblood is a disappointingly bland shooter that fails to capture the intensity or passion of New Order and New Colossus, delivering a humdrum experience plagued by uninteresting design and grindy gameplay.

Wolfenstein Youngblood is largely forgettable. It’s not bad, per se, merely competent. I’m happy to set this one aside and wait for the next proper Wolfenstein sequel, far removed from half-baked RPG mechanics and Nazis who conveniently design door switch and secret mechanism to be completed by two people instead of just one.

Youngblood feels like Wolfenstein got drunk and ended up at the wrong party. It’s still able to pull off some of the same old tricks, but it feels wildly out of place alongside RPG-style levelling from Destiny or The Division. The next entry needs to go back to the previous formula, let me shoot my way through hordes of Nazi’s and spin a good yarn. Go home Wolfenstein, you’re drunk.

New Colossus fans will probably dislike its unfocused narrative and fussy levelling system, but Youngblood offers plenty of blood and thunder if you give it time.

With this latest installment, it feels as though Machine Games is both running out of ideas and losing the plot a little with what fans have celebrated about this modern era of the Wolfenstein.

The shoehorned inclusion of microtransactions is kind of ugly because it’s limited to weapon and character skins and timed character boosts that serve no purpose other than to get you to spend money. I suppose it’s a small mercy that you don’t need premium currency for anything but at this point, why even bother? I try not to judge but anyone who buys gold bars to get skins and boosts is wasting their money. Skip this game and play The New Order and The New Colossus instead. You’ll have way more fun. Honest.

Intentions to do something different are appreciated, but the way these additions sabotage the previously pristine core mechanics will only make your blood boil instead.

Thanks to questionable tactics, a tedious and boring structure, bullet spongey enemies, and a narrative that’s completely throwaway, Wolfenstein: Youngblood is far and away the worst entry in the franchise this generation. Some of its inventive combat mechanics remain intact, but they’re completely overshadowed by throwaway side quests that we were tired of five years ago. This is a boring, tedious slog through Nazi-occupied Paris that you can probably skip.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is hurting without B.J.. While he was sort of made out to be a tool in The New Colossus, his daughters are insufferable dude-bros who only want to kill - they just so happen to use Nazis as an excuse to justify their bloodlust. There are no more soulful internal monologues, instead these girls cause tons of collateral damage, and the game acts like its cute. The gameplay is so flawed on a fundamental level that it is beyond saving and all of it is for the sake of padding. What's the point making the side-quests "optional" if they are necessary? May as well have made this a traditionally linear, first-person shooter in the first place.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a game that is great for shooting Nazi’s with a buddy, but is bogged down by frustrating grinding mechanics, a poor narrative and an uninspired cast of characters that feel complacent and bland.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood feels like a non-essential addition to the franchise, and a game that is sorely missing the humanity of BJ Blazkowicz.

It experiments with all the weakest parts of the series and ties them together with a new, tedious progression system.