Their first wolfenstein was a masterpiece with a surprisingly compelling man in the high castle-esqe story (the old blood was also pretty excellent as an homage to ‘Where Eagles Dare’).

The sequel tossed all that good storytelling away by embracing a really cringe narritive that whiplashes between deathly serious discussions that are literally interrupted by bathroom poop jokes. That could’ve even been funny, but it didn’t seem to be poking fun at itself in a self aware way, it was just poor and inconsistant writing.

The 3rd was just an objectively bad game that tossed aside all the good aspects of the first title.

I was hopeful they would turn it around with the new Indy game, but that ultimately left me with a very mediocre feeling. Story was okay, but the gameplay left a lot to be desired, with repetitive ancient ruins puzzles that felt very gamey, combined with a bunch of somewhat lame side quests and okay-ish combat, and level design that felt a bit too restrictive for the stealth to really shine. The best aspect of it was just wandering around the different environments in disguises, like a virtual tourist.

I’m no longer hopeful that Machine Games can recapture the magic of the first wolfenstein reboot.