Wolfenstein: The Old Blood

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood sends B.J. Blazkowicz and a partner into the original Castle Wolfenstein itself, years before the events of MachineGames' 2014 reboot The New Order, on a mission to steal intelligence that quickly turns into a six-to-seven-hour rampage through Nazi soldiers, undead horrors, and one memorably absurd robotic dog. This review sample makes clear that reviewers see it as more than a simple cash-in prequel — genuinely one of the strongest standalone expansions of its console generation.

Tighter, gorier, and widely praised as an improvement

The praise here is specific and comes from reviewers who clearly know the previous game well. "This plays like a game where the developers took the lessons of the first game to heart to make a better game," one detailed reviewer writes, singling out the new weapons directly: "I love these guns. They're awesome." Another calls it plainly "the best standalone expansion I've played since Blood Dragon," praising the combination of familiar gameplay, new weapons, and a shorter, more focused runtime. A recurring, lighthearted detail several reviewers mention with genuine affection: attempting to quit the game mid-session triggers a taunting in-game message calling the player a coward, a small touch reviewers describe finding charming rather than annoying.

A specific, recurring stealth complaint

Set against that praise, a consistent and specific critique targets the game's stealth sections. "Stealth sections, man," one detailed reviewer opens, before explaining precisely why they don't work: "there aren't any interesting tricks to it." A separate reviewer names the specific frustration directly: "the mechanic where you have to sneak up behind super soldiers and hold a button for several seconds" to perform a takedown, describing the resulting pacing as tedious rather than tense. That's a specific, mechanically grounded complaint rather than vague dissatisfaction, and it recurs often enough across independent reviews to treat as a genuine structural weak point in an otherwise strong package.

A price-versus-length debate worth knowing about

A quieter but recurring theme concerns value relative to length. Several reviewers specifically question why this standalone prequel launched at a price comparable to the full-length New Order despite offering roughly half the playtime, even while still recommending the purchase overall. "I am not sure why this game is priced the same as the New Order, while twice as less of gameplay time," one reviewer writes, framing it more as a fair critique of original launch pricing than a complaint about the game's actual content. That's useful, practical context for anyone deciding when to buy — several reviewers specifically suggest waiting for a discount given the shorter runtime relative to the series' full entries, a recommendation this review's own current price-check bears out given the frequent discounts this listing sees.

A specific technical concern for AMD hardware

Beyond the stealth critique, several detailed reviews report a more serious technical problem: poor performance and crashing specifically tied to AMD graphics cards. One reviewer describes the game "freezing at the end of every level" on their AMD-based system before eventually crashing on resume entirely, while a separate, shorter review states the issue even more directly: "the game has a fatal issue with AMD graphic cards." These reports span several years rather than clustering around a single patch, so this review can't confirm whether the issue remains current on today's drivers, but it's specific and corroborated enough to check directly against your own hardware before buying if you're running an AMD graphics card.

What the completion data adds

Steam's achievement statistics offer a useful independent read on how far the average buyer progresses. Early milestones sit above 90% of the tracked playerbase, and general story-progression achievements remain comparatively high through much of the mid-game, consistent with a short, tightly paced campaign that a large share of buyers see through relative to longer games in this catalogue. The hardest, presumably completionist-tier achievements fall to around 4%, a more modest drop-off than many longer titles reviewed in this lane, which lines up with reviewers' consistent description of this as an approachable, well-paced six-to-seven-hour experience rather than a long grind. As with several other older titles here, the achievement schema returns only generic internal identifiers rather than readable names, so this review can describe the general shape of that curve without tying it to specific story chapters.

Part of a well-regarded rebooted trilogy

It's worth placing this game in its wider series context, since reviewers frequently do so themselves. The Old Blood sits between MachineGames' acclaimed 2014 reboot The New Order and the studio's subsequent sequels, and reviewers who've played the wider series generally describe this prequel as a smaller, more experimental entry that let the developers refine mechanics before their next full sequel — a useful framing for understanding why it feels simultaneously familiar and more polished than the game it's a prequel to.

Where it lands

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood earns its strong reception through tightened, refined gunplay that reviewers consistently rank above even The New Order's well-regarded combat, wrapped in a focused, satisfying runtime that avoids feeling like padded filler. The specific, recurring stealth-design complaint is concrete enough to set expectations around rather than treat as a minor footnote, and the reported AMD compatibility issues are worth checking directly against your own setup. For fans of The New Order and the wider Wolfenstein series, this remains a strong, worthwhile prequel, best picked up at a discount given its shorter runtime relative to the series' full-length entries.