@hailinel: I'm not aware of any German laws banning references to Nazis in Games. The problem always is that a few select symbols (the swastika being the obvious one) associated with Nazi ideaology are considered anti-constitutional to prevent their public use and display (understandable). Their use is restricted to educational material about that time. Most media like films etc. are exempt from the ban to prevent inhibition of artistic freedom (which solves any problem I might have with the ban); games however unfortunately do not currently enjoy that priviledge. In fact, many strategy games have unaltered German versions even though they reference a lot of real-life history with all that entails without getting into trouble. Even the Indiana Jones movies are fine by German law and those have Hitler giving his fucking autograph! Same with Inglorious Bastards etc. There's even music that samples Nazi speeches (including ones by Hitler) which is also legally fine.

This iteration of Wolfenstein got "released" because they went through the trouble of heavily editing it. They tried the same for the last game but missed a swastika on some texture in the game which still got the censored version banned. The only other pitfall would be to be accused of actual hate speech, antisemitism and the like but I don't think that's fundamentally different than laws in many other countries.

Anyway, very interesting interview! Doing some really exceptional work with these Patrick.

Wait... What 2 or 3 previous games were remembered less than fondly? Starting at Wolfenstein 3D there have only been 4 proper games. As far as I know the 3 leading up to new order were quite well regarded.

1. Wolfenstein 3D is a damn classic.

2. Return to castle Wolfenstein was an awesome sequel and had the best multiplayer.

3. Wolfenstein (2009) was an underrated gem, and, if I remember correctly, reviewed pretty well.

Excellent; waiting for that. Reading is for suckers. B|

@tranquilchaos: There's also Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny between 1 & 2 though our wiki classifies that as a "standalone expansion" and I never played it myself - only ever saw a Let's Play. So I'm not sure if that was well-liked or not or, indeed, if I would've liked it personally.

I actually agree with your evalution of the games though. I'm pretty sure 2 & 3 are a little more controversial among fans at large though. I wouldn't know since 1 was my first FPS, 2 was my first graphics porn showpiece on my very first truly own gaming PC and 3 pandered to me in all the right ways (I actually enjoyed the Nazi gold hunting "open world" and pseudo-RPG stuff) so all those games are the shit to me!

Yeah, I don't recall any Wolfenstein game being disliked by fans or critics. The 2009 game just went below everybody's radar, kinda like Singularity, because Activision decided they'd never again advertise anything but Call of Duty games. Pretty much the only marketing the 2009 game got was a somewhat shoddy port of Wolfenstein 3D released on 360 and PS3.

@patrickklepek: "A requirement for Wolfenstein is kicking Nazi ass, so obviously you’re kicking Nazi ass. But these days, nazis are the go-to popular villain if you want to have bad guys."

Do you honestly believe this is the case?

I don't think we've seen Nazis since Call of Duty WaW. PMCs, aliens, the government, brown people, Russians, Eastern Europeans, crazy people with British accents, and robots get a lot more play these days.

@garbagewrappedinskin: "Brown people"? Really?

After reading this intervju and earlier the one with Josef Fares I really hope you could do a tripp to Sweden. Take some time with all the different game studios here. And maybe eat some strange food :)

Great interview Patrick, thanks for transcribing it!

A creative always has something else in mind when making something. The end result rarely matches up 1:1 with what you were hoping for.

It seems like every developer from the biggest to the smallest plans a sequel before optimizing the PC version nowadays. I'm getting too old for this shit.

There wasn't nearly enough attention given to the in-game toilets. And there are beautiful ones.

Playing this now because of the Steam sale. I was going to pick it up eventually because this style of shooter is always a blast (the new ROTT and Shadow Warrior come to mind), and am finding myself really enjoying everything the game has to offer.

Great interview @patrickklepek!

I can't speak for Machine, but personally as a "creative" there always has to be a laser-like focus on your current project - straight up caring about only that - or else you end up stuck in a loop of decision paralysis or reiteration. At a point you have to decide that this thing you're doing will work, and become so entranced by that idea (and whatever parts of your previous work that sit poorly with you) that the current thing becomes your realest thing.

I am really happy I played this game. It reminded me of why I started playing games in the first place.

Great interview, @patrickklepek. Always nice to hear from a dev who's open, honest and clearly engaged with his work. Often feels like there's so much obfuscation and canned rhetoric in the games industry.