Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Cringe and repetitive. Dumb dialogues, Semi open world, micro transactions and a coop experience that doesn't work. Just a money grab. Stay away!!!

Just outrageous, like Fallout 76.

Buy it, if you dare.

This is my first foray into Wolfenstein as I have never played these games for as long as I have been alive, and it's nothing short of rage-inducing.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a first-person shooter that plays like an RPG with it's grinding, leveling system, enemy teirs, and heavy/light ammo mechanics. And of the little that I do know about Wolfenstein I'm certain that the mainline games are fairly linear shooters with none of these gameplay elements.

The gunplay feels good and the ability to upgrade your weapons is neat, but it's second to none compared with the enemy durability. They absorb damage while eating through your health and armor, even with your guns upgraded. To add insult to injury the upgrades you apply to your weapons transfers to theirs as well, giving them an unfair advantage. And to add to the frustration the enemy AI has heightened senses, making stealth difficult.

Then there is the game map. You're given a minimap and a marker to direct your characters through their objectives. But often times you'll get lost and run around in circles if you don't have a keen eye for your surroundings.

Now for my closing statements. I have heard and read people express their dissatisfaction over this game's protagonists, from them being females and supposedly pushing identity politics, to not being able to play as the male lead (B.J. Blazkowicz) from previous games, to the supposedly cringe nature of the playable character's personalities and interactions.

And honestly I don't care about any of that. It's the half-baked gameplay mechanics, even with the subsequent patches to make difficulty and gameplay simpler, that I take issue with.

Wolfenstein The New Order and The New Colossus were both great games with likeable characters, a great story/dialogue and gameplay. Young Blood has none of this. The two main characters in Young Blood are awfully written with most dialogue being very cringe-worthy and down right terrible. Enemies now have a RPG style system with a health bar and levels which makes many enemies bullet sponges that can take up to 75 shots to kill. This is especially bad when ammo is scarce and when you die, you respawn with the amount of ammo you died with. This means you can go into a hard section or boss fight in the game with little to absolutely 0 bullets. Playing the game with friends can be okay but by yourself is awful. The friendly AI is extremely low quality and will very often the AI will screw you over in gameplay. Young Blood is a huge downgrade in every category over its predecessors and I would definitely not recommend unless on sale for an extremely low price.

Playing this with my friend and we're having a fun time! We love the twins and love quoting them. We also really love the 80s vibes and 80s themed collectibles. But, I wish there was more story. I don't mind the RPG elements but I also wish there was an in-game pause button. I think this game is a lot more fun with a friend but the AI is good so I'm giving it an 8/10