Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a 2001 first-person shooter game developed by Gray Matter Studios and published by Activision. It was initially released for Microsoft Windows and subsequently for the PlayStation 2 (as Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Operation Resurrection), Xbox (as Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War), Linux, and Macintosh in the following years. The game serves as a reboot of the Wolfenstein series. id Software, the developers of Wolfenstein 3D, oversaw the development and were credited as executive producers.
Upon release, Return to Castle Wolfenstein received a generally favorable reception, with critics praising the visual presentation and design of the game's open-ended levels in its single-player campaign and quality of its multiplayer gameplay. However, critics considered the game was not as innovative or impactful as the design of its predecessor, and expressed that its narrative and themes were unoriginal. Splash Damage created some of the maps for the Game of the Year edition. A sequel, titled Wolfenstein, was released in 2009.
Gameplay Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a first-person shooter in which the player navigates levels and fights enemies including Nazi soldiers, undead, and experimental mutants.Activision (2001) p. 15-16 The player acquires weapons and ammo throughout levels, including for pistols, submachine guns, rifles, grenades, rockets, flamethrowers, and experimental weapons including the Venom, a minigun, and the Tesla Gun, which shoots electricity at enemies.Activision (2001) p. 9 Some weapons have alternate fire modes, such as rifles that have a scope, or shoot projectiles.Activision (2001) p. 11 The player can also engage in melee combat by either kicking or using a knife. Damage is location-specific, with headshots damaging enemies more than other areas. Special items can be collected that increase the player's health, ammo, armor, or stamina.Activision (2001) p. 13
In the game's single-player mode, players use combat and stealth to complete objectives across 27 levels in 7 missions. Missions begin with a mission briefing, providing information about objectives,Activision (2001) p. 4 and may include activities such as reaching the end of an area, defeating all the enemies, collecting certain items, eliminating specific enemies, or stealth missions. Mission levels contain secrets and treasure in hidden areas, with completion of the level informing the player if all have been discovered.Activision (2001) p. 14 Several missions and the endgame also feature more difficult boss battles. The player can review objectives and mission information in their notebook, as well as collect notes or read clipboards and letters throughout the levels that provide background information.Activision (2001) p. 15
Stealth missions require players to sneak and take cover through levels to avoid enemy detection. Guards in these levels will independently patrol the area and have their own routines. When enemies detect a player, they will be alerted and sound an alarm at an alarm box, causing other enemies to appear.Activision (2001) p.8 Players can take down enemies from behind whilst sneaking if undetected.Activision (2001) p. 12 Some stealth missions lead to failure if enemies sound an alarm.
Multiplayer Multiplayer is an objective-based game mode, in which players are split into two teams—Axis and Allies. Each team has a set of objectives to complete, the Allies usually being to destroy some sort of Axis objective, and the Axis objectives being to defend their objectives. These objectives are split into two categories, primary and secondary. Primary objectives are ones which must be completed for victory, generally stealing secret documents or destroying a radar array; however, secondary objectives are ones which are optional—they do not have to be completed, but if they are they may aid the appropriate team, such as blowing out a door to allow access into a tunnel which shortens travel time or allows less-noticeable infiltration of the enemy base.
Each team has access to a slightly different set of weapons, matching those used by each side in World War II. Players can choose from four different classes: Soldier, Medic, Engineer and Lieutenant. Soldiers can carry heavy weapons, such as the Panzerfaust, Venom Cannon or Flamethrower, which are not available to other classes. Medics can revive and heal other teammates. Engineers can breach obstacles and arm and defuse dynamite. Lieutenants can supply ammo to teammates and are able to call in air strikes.
Each class specializes in a certain aspect of the game, and an effective team will balance players out using all four classes, such as soldiers for blasting through enemy defenses, medics for supporting the team and keeping them alive, Lieutenants to resupply teammates with ammo, and engineers to complete the objective.
There are three different modes of play, each allowing for a different experience—objective, stopwatch, and checkpoint. Stopwatch calls for the Allied side to complete a set of objectives within a predefined time limit. The opposing team then become the Allies and have to complete the objectives in a shorter time than the now Axis. Checkpoint gamemode is a mode in which teams capture flags. It may be more commonly known as Capture the Flag (CTF). Whichever team is first to control all the flags at once, wins. The team-based networked multiplayer features different character classes that must work together in order to win. There are four classes — lieutenant, medic, engineer, and soldier — the soldier can be one of several subclasses depending upon the special/heavy weapon that he selects. The multiplayer demo includes a beachhead assault map similar to Omaha Beach.
Plot
In 1943, assigned to the Office of Secret Actions (OSA) from the military, US Army Ranger William "B.J." Blazkowicz and British operative Agent One are sent to Egypt to investigate the activity of the German SS Paranormal Division. The duo find themselves witness to the SS releasing an ancient curse around the dig site, resurrecting scores of zombies from their slumber. Pushing through the mummies and Nazis, B.J. and Agent One are led to an airfield and a location to follow. As they tail the SS, the two are shot down near Austria and captured by the Nazis. Agent One and Blazkowicz are imprisoned in Castle Wolfenstein, a remote, medieval castle that serves as a stronghold, prison, and research station. During their incarceration, Agent One is tortured for information and dies from electrocution. B.J., however, manages to escape Castle Wolfenstein's dungeon and fights his way out of the castle, using a cable car to leave the area and meet up with Kessler, a member of the German resistance in a nearby village.
Meanwhile, the SS Paranormal Division, under Oberführer Helga von Bülow, has long since moved from Egypt and has been excavating the catacombs and crypts of an ancient church within the village itself in search of the resting place of a "Dark Knight". The Division's sloppy precautions have led to the release of an ancient curse and the awakening of hordes of undead creatures, this time including Saxon knights. The majority of the SS finally realize the dangers and seal off the entrance into the catacombs, leaving many soldiers trapped inside. B.J. descends regardless and fights both Nazis and undead until he arrives at the ancient house of worship, the Defiled Church, where Nazi scientist Professor Zemph is conducting a 'life essence extraction' on the corpse of a Dark Knight, which, thanks to some Nazi technology, succeeds. Shortly before B.J.'s arrival, Zemph tries to talk the impatient Helga von Bulow out of retrieving an ancient Thulian artifact, the "Dagger of Warding" from a nearby altar in an isolated area of the church, but she shoots him and proceeds. This final blunder awakens another monster, Olaric, which kills and dismembers her. Blazkowicz, after a heated battle against spirits and demon attacks, defeats Olaric, and then is airlifted out with Zemph's notes and the dagger.
With the lead on Helga seeming to have come to a close, the OSA begins to shift its focus to one of Germany's leading scientific researchers and Head of the SS Special Projects Division, Oberführer Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse. Their investigation leads the OSA to realizing that Deathshead is preparing to launch an attack on London. He intends to use a V-2 rocket fitted with an experimental biological warhead, launching it from his base near Katamarunde in the Baltics. Due to the stealthy nature in which the OSA needs to act, Blazkowicz is parachuted some distance from the missile base and separated from his equipment. After collecting his gear, he smuggles himself into a supply truck bound for the base. Once inside, Blazkowicz destroys the V-2 on its launchpad and fights his way out of the facility towards an airbase filled with experimental jet aircraft. There, he commandeers a "Kobra" rocket-plane and flies to safety in Malta.
Eager to know more about Deathshead and his secret projects, the OSA sends Blazkowicz to the bombed-out city of Kugelstadt, where he is assisted by members of the German Kreisau Circle resistance group in breaking into a ruined factory and exfiltrating a defecting scientist. It is there he discovers the blueprints and prototype of the Reich's latest weapon, an electrically operated hand-held minigun dubbed the Venom Gun. Blazkowicz eventually breaks into Deathshead's underground research complex, the Secret Weapons Facility. There he encounters the horrific fruits of Deathshead's labors: creatures malformed and twisted through surgery and mechanical implants. The creatures escape from their containments and go on a rampage. Blazkowicz fights his way through the facility, only to see Deathshead escape the chaos by U-boat, and learns of his destination by interrogating a captured German officer.
Blazkowicz is then parachuted into Norway, close to Deathshead's mysterious "X-Labs." After breaking into the facility, which has been overrun by the twisted creatures he encountered in Kugelstadt (dubbed 'Lopers'), Blazkowicz retrieves Deathshead's journal, which links Deathshead's research to the rest of the SS Paranormal's occult activity. Finally catching up with Deathshead, Blazkowicz comes face to face with a completed and fully armored Übersoldat, and kills the researchers who have developed it. After the Übersoldat is destroyed, Deathshead escapes in a Kobra rocket-plane and disappears for the rest of the game.
After studying the documents captured by Blazkowicz, the OSA has become aware of a scheme codenamed 'Operation: Resurrection', a plan to resurrect Heinrich I, a legendary and powerful Saxon warlock-king from 943 AD. Despite the skepticism of senior Allied commanders, the OSA parachutes Blazkowicz back into the vicinity of Castle Wolfenstein, at the Bramburg Dam, ending up at the village town of Paderborn. After assassinating all the senior officers of the SS Paranormal Division present there for the resurrection, Blazkowicz shoots his way through Chateau Schufstaffel and emerges into the grounds beyond. After fighting two more Übersoldaten, Blazkowicz enters an excavation site near Castle Wolfenstein.