20 Years of Killin' Nazis: A Retrospective

There's not much that hasn't been written about id Software's Wolfenstein 3D over the last two decades. Lauded as the true grandfather of 3D shooters, Wolfenstein 3D is responsible for laying down the fundamental foundations that first-person shooters still follow today.

Developed by industry legends John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, Jason Blochowiak and Adrian Carmack and released on May 5, 1992, Wolfenstein 3D (with the help of id's Doom the following year) triggered the shift away from side-scrolling shooters and towards first-person shooters. Inspired by a duo of Muse Software stealth-based games from the '80s (Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein) Wolfenstein 3D cast players as Polish-American super-soldier William "B.J." Blazkowicz and demanded they escape a Nazi-infested castle. It was a simple premise. The rub, of course, was that there was an army of German troops, attack dogs, and even Hitler himself standing between B.J. and him earning that nickname with some well-deserved I&I; in liberated Paris.

It's actually quite remarkable just how many first-person shooter tropes were born in Wolfenstein 3D and survive to this day. Sure, two decades worth of technological leaps have placed modern first-person shooters light years away from the likes of Wolfenstein 3D. Back during the development of Wolfenstein 3D it reportedly took as little as a single day for the id team to build an entire level (these days it takes developers six months to build a single car). Still, while times have changed, there's no denying that the hearts of today's shooters all pound to the beat Wolfenstein 3D laid down 20 years ago.


It's difficult to believe it's been so long since we shot that first shocked Nazi in the face with his dead pal's Luger. Going back now and simply selecting a difficulty setting from the four available is already making me feel old. Remember? The difficulty settings for Wolfenstein 3D weren't simply easy, medium, hard and veteran. They were 'Can I play, Daddy?', 'Don't hurt me', 'Bring 'em on!' and 'I am Death incarnate!' To play on the lowest setting meant choosing a picture of B.J. in a baby bonnet sucking a pacifier. In an era where games bend over backwards in the name of accessibility, having a game mock you for being soft is more than refreshing.


Get Psyched! the loading screen commands, and I'm instantly transported back to the uncomfortable vinyl-covered chair in front of our crusty, old family computer, stabbing the turbo button and wishing it would actually do something. I have homework to do, but these Nazis aren't going to kill themselves.


Wolfenstein 3D didn't just kickstart a genre. It started a sub-genre while it was at it: WWII shooters. Many developers have since turned their attention to the Second World War era, and why not? It was the largest and most devastating conflict in human history. Unfortunately, so many developers did so that World War II shooters became cliche, stigmatised by vocal detractors as ubiquitous and unoriginal.

Today, however, as our increasingly homogenised shooters refuse to budge from their bleeding-edge contemporary (or near-future) backdrops perhaps a return to 1939-1945 could be a surprisingly fresh approach? For instance, could Gearbox's Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 and City Interactive's Enemy Front be just the antidote to our overdose of modern combat?

Here's a dirty dozen of the best World War II shooters of the past two decades to help you think.



Food for thought for gamers who get their panties in a twist over sequels appearing as little as a year after their forebears; the gap between Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny was less than six months. More or less identical in nature to Wolfenstein 3D (it was developed in just two months, according to John Romero) Spear of Destiny saw B.J. Blazkowicz on the hunt for a Christian artefact Hitler believed would guarantee victory for the Third Reich. It's also notable for featuring the least amount of shirts ever on a packshot for a World War II shooter.



DreamWorks Interactive's Medal of Honor was a phenomenon. Developed for the original PlayStation, and helmed by Steven Spielberg, Medal of Honor introduced us to OSS operative Lieutenant Jimmy Patterson, setting new standards for production values on a console first-person shooter in the process. Medal of Honor was a hugely important first-person shooter and is entirely responsible for us knowing how to say, "The American has dog biscuits in his pocket" in German.



A key pioneer of hardcore, tactical PC shooters, Hidden & Dangerous was a bold, behind-enemy-lines experience. Playable in first- and third-person, Hidden & Dangerous gave players an elite squad of British SAS operators and set them loose all over occupied Europe. A patient, thinking-man's shooter, Hidden & Dangerous was the sort of game that'd have an ADD sufferer mainlining Ritalin into their eyeballs.



A reboot (of sorts) of Wolfenstein 3D brought B.J. back into the spotlight almost 10 years after his debut. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was adored by fans for its robust multiplayer but the cable car section of the single-player mode – shamelessly lifted from the Richard Burton/Clint Eastwood film Where Eagles Dare – was worth the price of entry alone. Manly enough to put a moustache on your moustache, Where Eagles Dare is one of the greatest action-adventures ever screened.



Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, together with its expansion packs Spearhead and Breakthrough, is one of the most influential shooters since the turn of the century. Allied Assault is really the game that set the tone for today's WWII shooters; it was epic, realistic and about as close as you could get to a Saving Private Ryan video game without sending Tom Hanks a cheque and the address to your motion-capture studio.



Medal of Honor: Frontline's first level, the Omaha Beach landing, is easily one of the most memorable opening sequences in any video game, ever. They don't really make shooters like this anymore. More technically accomplished, sure, but Frontline had players going from face first in French sand at Normandy to behind-enemy-lines in a German-filled pub, flashing false papers at anyone who looked at you in the space of just a few levels. That's variety.



If you haven't heard of Battlefield you're obviously here by accident but, for the younger set, this is the ancestor to the Battlefield series you know today. Be sure to speak up when you are actually sick of all these modern warfare shooters; a trip back to where it all began could be the next step. Battlefield 1943 was certainly a success. Come on, EA. Battlefield 1944, anyone?



It may come as quite a surprise to Call of Duty's squeakiest detractors but there was a time, back in 2003 when Call of Duty was actually about the most innovative and mind-blowing new shooter to hit shelves. Arriving just as it became clear Medal of Honor's quality had started to wane, Call of Duty was a revelation. Unlike Medal of Honor, Call of Duty featured British and Russian campaigns alongside an American one. It also differed noticeably from most other shooters at the time by featuring large numbers of allied comrades fighting alongside the player and progressing with them through the levels.



Going above and beyond the original in every way (although the implementation of regenerating health was a little tricky to swallow at the time) Call of Duty 2 really upped the ante. The Ranger assault on Pointe du Hoc depicted in the game is probably, even today, still one of the greatest single levels in a WWII shooter. It's worth noting Call of Duty 2 marked the series debut on Xbox 360. That's going on seven games ago. If that doesn't remind you just how long-in-the-tooth this generation is, nothing will.



If Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is gaming's nearest equivalent to Saving Private Ryan, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is its Band of Brothers. Hell's Highway is the most recent instalment of Gearbox's respected tactical WWII shooter series and it's the best by far, combining conventional first-person shooter action with slow-paced, intelligent gameplay. Rather than the broad, greatest hits-style approach to WWII games – featuring huge, infantry clashes from throughout the war – Hell's Highway is a more personal drama, focusing entirely on one 101st Airborne Division squad and their actions in the ill-fated allied push into the Netherlands: Operation Market Garden. Market Garden was a huge operational failure for the allies, whose plan famously went "a bridge too far". Setting a game inside the context of a loss makes Hell's Highway a little different from your average WWII shooter.



Probably still the starkest Call of Duty to date, the Russian campaign in Call of Duty: World at War was a brutal drive from Stalingrad to the Reichstag. World at War, along with Hell's Highway, remains arguably one of the most hauntingly realistic portrayals of WWII violence to date, with the kind of gore you rarely see this side of a zombie slasher. World at War raised a few eyebrows for its depiction of war crimes but it was the killing of dogs that really took a crap in PETA's cornflakes; you know, because killing humans is okay, but killing deadly attack dogs isn't.



Until the arrival of Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 and Enemy Front, Red Orchestra 2 is the most recent WWII shooter worth a damn. Exclusively for PC and set on the Eastern Front, pitting the Russians against the Germans, Red Orchestra 2 is properly hardcore – and prides itself on that fact. Real ballistics are accounted for (with bullet drop and spin factored for) health does not regenerate at all, even with the use of medical equipment (and non-fatal wounds needs to be bandaged to ensure your health doesn't continue to deteriorate) and there's no HUD. If you want to know how many rounds you have left you either need to simply remember, or check your magazine manually. All the sorrow of Stalingrad in one unforgiving package!

Have your own fond memories of Wolfenstein 3D? What's YOUR favourite World War II shooter from the past 20 years? Let us know below.


Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can chat to him about games, cars and WWII on IGN here or find him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.

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