Raven Software’s Wolfenstein is the next entry in a storied franchise. Over the last seventeen years you’ve killed countless Nazi and occult creeps, stolen plenty of documents and stockpiled treasure, explored numerous bunkers and fortresses, and even battled a mechanical Hitler. You’ve done a lot.
With this in mind, I asked id Software’s community manager Peter Sokol what Raven Software’s Wolfenstein would do differently. His answer was simple: the supernatural plays “more of a key role” in Raven’s upcoming title with the addition of The Veil — a mechanic we played around with at GDC 2009. Sokol continued and told me about two of the four unique powers The Veil would give players. The powers can be used to trigger events, solve puzzles and kill enemies. A nice selection considering Wolfenstein‘s pedigree. You can catch his comments below the fold.
I think it’s wise to add Wolfenstein will a bit of an open-world feel. The main city in the game is a hub, a place where you can explore and pick up new missions from the city’s various factions. Not bad either.
“Well, we’ve taken a lot of great stuff from the older games in the franchise like the treasure hunting,” Sokol said. “but it’s always had this fast-paced first-person shooter combat with a supernatural twist to it, and I’d say in this game, the supernatural plays more of a key role in the game.”
“You’ve got the Veil, which is a huge addition to the franchise,” Sokol continued. “Wolfenstein is about fast-paced first-person shooter combat, so we’ve designed these four bell towers that you get in the game to enhance that experience because, you know, B.J., he doesn’t use magic, he’s a one-man army, as I was touching on earlier. So, you’ve got these four Veil powers such as Mire, which allows you to slow down time, so you can dodge bullet fire, you can line up the perfect shot, those types of things. “
“But, you’ve also got Shield, [a power] where you can put up a barrier in front of yourself, absorb bullet damage. If you’re the type of guy that likes to run into a room with total disregard for how many guys are in there or where the cover spots are — [a] ‘just screw all that’ [type] — you want to run in and just start shooting people, you can pop on Shield and you can play the game you want to play. So, if you want to do stealth, there’s ways for you to manipulate and experiment with the Veil powers, as well as the weapon upgrades, to cater the experience to more how you want to play the game.”
[This question was sort of submitted by Destructoid reader “dangermartian” via Twitter. He wanted to know why he should care about Wolfenstein. It looks dull to him. I assumed, perhaps mistakenly, that he played the others and wanted to see what was different.
I hope I helped out a bit. The Veil does look pretty rad and should offer something different to FPS veterans. You can’t slip dimensions in Crysis or Call of Duty. You also can’t traverse an open-world map in traditional FPS games — something that Sokol didn’t mention to me when we talked, but is definitely included in Raven Software’s Wolenstein.
In those games you also can’t traverse an open-world, something that Sokol didn’t mention to me when we talked.
If any of YOU have game-related questions or would like to have the opportunity to submit a question to a publisher/developer/representative/hobo/clown, follow me on Twitter.]
