Capitalism vs Art: Wolfenstein Youngblood

So first off if I'm gonna get in some people who are angry about this game and talk sense into them I should probably have as atrocious a thumbnail as possible. BJ Blazkowicz in a pussy hat? Nah, wait. An “I'm With Her" shirt. And… text.. ummm… “feminism strikes again". Perfect.

Okay we're not doing that.

I'm sorry to anyone who might come to this video who does want an explanation of why social justice ruined Wolfenstein. I'm sorry about how incredibly mistaken they are. Social justice was the good thing about this franchise. The problem is capitalism.


Okay.


Let's talk about choices.

New Order, the first game in the MachineGames reboot of the franchise, opened with a choice. The primary antagonist wants to kill one of your crew and you have to choose who to spare and who to let die. This choice will haunt you throughout the game. Whoever you choose to spare will tell you they think you made the wrong choice. Whoever you let die will ultimately be put into a death machine, unable to do anything but watch as they try to kill you, their friend who let them die, and you will have no choice but to kill them - actively this time, instead of the passive way you let them die before. Thematically, here they are trapped in a violence machine, forced to attack their friend, only able to escape into death. They are the perfect dark mirror of BJ Blazkowicz, the protagonist.

The sequel, New Colossus, also opens with a choice. A choice directly adjacent to repeating this Fergus/Wyatt dilemma, no less. You, as Blazkowicz, have to choose whether or not to shoot his dog. Except, nobody shoots the dog, and the people who do correlate shockingly well with the people who enjoyed the nazis in the game and hated the black woman…. But maybe that's for another video.

When you don't shoot the dog, BJ’s dad takes the gun off you and shoots it instead. This is flashbacks done well. The end result can't effect the future, but you still need to have the possibility of struggle, of change. Thematically, if the first game’s choice makes you confront the reality of loss, the horror of war, the inescapable truth of people dying, this choice brings fascism home. It draws a direct parallel between authoritarian parenting and authoritarian governance, and the rest of the game does this too, as do several scientific studies… um…

In New Order you see that people really really die, and in New Colossus you see that fascism doesn't let you save people from that.


So Wolfenstein Youngblood also starts with a choice. Five choices, actually…

You have to choose which twin to play as, what colour their suit should be, what style of helmet they wear, which throwable weapon they carry and which special ability they get. One of these will affect your play style. The rest will not affect the game at all.

Especially as the introductory scene of the story focuses on the differences between the twins, it would not be ridiculous to assume that choosing which character to play as would be a split timeline thing, like in previous games… it isn't.

This opening menu of five choices is not only a bizarre let down compared to the weight of choices in previous games, but an upsetting intrusion. It foreshadows a set of issues that plague the game as a whole. There is a spectre hanging over Wolfenstein Youngblood. The spectre of capitalism.

So let’s talk about a word that gamers use to mean “I don't understand that what I hate about this is capitalism!”: microtransactions. In the game, if you want to upgrade your weapons, or buy new aesthetics or unlock certain extras, you can buy an in-game currency using real world actual cash. This is pretty standard practice for a lot of games, and a lot of people hate it, but it makes companies money so it isn't going to stop unless people boycott their games. You know what isn't standard practice?

Having the in-game currency be nazi gold.

Yes, the currency you buy with your real world money, in the game, is nazi gold.

Do you know what nazi gold is?

There was this thing you might have heard of, called the holocaust, and during the holocaust the nazis stole gold from the jewish community and pressed it into gold bars. Some of that gold was stolen from the bodies of the people killed. Nazi gold is wedding rings and gold teeth.

Now, to be clear, there was a collectible set in New Colossus which was also nazi treasure. Let's talk about why that's different. In New Colossus, the nazi treasure is a collectible set. You pick up these things as you kill nazis and raid their headquarters. It parallels the real life efforts of real life actual nazi hunters who tracked down nazis after the war and returned the stolen wealth back to the jewish community.

In Youngblood, it is currency. In Youngblood, you are trading in Nazi Gold. You are trading in wedding rings and teeth.

This flies so directly in the face of what the series has been about since MachineGames took over development that if I heard about this decision instead of seeing it I would think it was a joke.

Okay. Let's talk about co-op. The decision to make this game lean so heavily on the two-player cooperative play mode, is simply, absolutely, brilliant.

MachineGames made a clever move by making the new game co-op, because it means you need to organise to work together with a friend to kill Nazis.. which uhh... reminds me... of something…





You have to work together and cooperate, and the fact that your friend takes on the role of your twin introduces a camaraderie beyond anything else. Hell, playing single player it is still pretty devastating when you don't make it over to protect your sister fast enough, you lose your last life and the message comes up, “JESS HAS DIED". The fact this game relies on protecting another person and also makes you rely on being protected by them is fantastic.

New Order: War is real, death is real and permanent

New Colossus: Fascism is evil

Youngblood: Only working together can stop fascism.

And I was really excited about this basic concept, but as soon as I saw there was no local co-op, no ability to play with your friend next to you on the sofa, I knew we were in trouble. As soon as it was clear that the only way to properly engage in this thematic message of cooperation was to have two separate Playstation consoles with two subscriptions to the play station network in order to get online, it was clear that this game had been fucked with by Bethesda, the publisher.

I wanted to talk about something I really love about the concept of this game, because I want to illustrate how this is a case of Capitalism vs Art. It isn't simply profit motives producing a bad game.

Wolfenstein Youngblood is a good game. It's just a good game trapped inside a mess of microtransactions and pay-for online play that in places directly fly in the face of what is good about this piece of media at all.

Youngblood is a good game trapped inside a terrible one. A beautiful soul, unable to escape a cold machine that only cares about profit.