For what was otherwise a pretty unusually less-than-newsworthy annual press conference, Bethesda saved the very best for the very last. After a brief 30 minutes highlighting upcoming VR versions of Fallout and Doom and other IP, they ended strong with an 8-minute trailer for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Unsurprising given the franchise’s reputation, this one was an overdrive assault of explosions, violence and insanity.
Before jumping into the world of Wolfenstein, a series of fake, real-world-ish TV shows are shown. First amongst them are a Lassie knock-off featuring a teenage girl calling a massive, robotic, fire breathing dog named Liesel. Then, a short montage of a Leave it To Beaver knock-off, a cartoon hero and a fake game show, hilariously named German or Else!
The action shifts to hero B.J. Blazkowicz being awoken from a hospital bed by pregnant Anya. From there, artful segments of the game’s vast and aggressive plot are shown minus context. Some type of assault happens on a lab and Frau Engle is quickly revealed to be the culprit. She’s shown intimidating Blazkowicz with a sinister grin. Random visuals of cities laid waste are intercut before video of an American town where apparently Nazis and K.K.K. members walk down the street with impunity. A German officer intimidates a “fireman” inside a diner. From there, Blazkowicz is shown attempting to communicate with the edgy resistance members, trying to organize a revolution to rid the U.S.A. (in this alternate world from ours continuity) from the grip of Nazi rule. It’s all guns, bombs, robots, mutants, explosions and general chaos from there. And the mechanics look top-notch. The action is fast and frenetic, but not so twitchy that it’s impossible to follow. The first-person weaponry appears to be wielded with shocking precision. Blazkowicz is shown going toe-to-toe with German officers, laser wielding robots and lord knows what else.
In the strangest twist of the trailer, at the very end a character gleefully drops a hit of acid while pregnant Anya brutally guts an enemy with a large knife in the background. The acid taker hallucinates a technicolor lizard jumping out of his pantleg which he scoops up and whispers how dangerous it is and, “We have to be so quiet.” For real, real. Not for play, play. See for yourself below.