General Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse is a gnarly looking
old man, with the kind of exaggeratedly evil voice, mannerisms and
disfigured face one tends to associate with modern depictions of Nazis. He’s
crouched down staring at me through the screen, flanked by two giant
Über-Soldaten, each with one of my comrades, Wyatt and Fergus,
wedged under their weighty knees. He’s goading me - or more
accurately William Joseph "B.J." Blazkowicz, the bloke I’m
in charge of - in that wholly merciless way Bad People From The National
Socialist Party tend to do. And because he’s a thoroughly amoral kinda
guy, you see, he’s up for dissecting one of them and he - here’s
the kicker - wants me to choose who is to be the lucky recipient of his
scientific attention. Do I pick Wyatt, the spunky rookie who only
minutes before had saved me from certain death and whom I now "owe
one"? Or will Fergus, the gruff and straightforward Scotsman who
clearly has a history with B.J - though to what extent I’m unsure; I
didn’t play two thousand and nine’s Wolfenstein - be the last man allowed to possibly, maybe, perhaps
stand back up?
Decisions.
Decisions.
Decisions.
Hold it for a bit longer, just so we’re sure he’s not joking.
Decisions.
Nope, video game Nazis are lots of things, but never, ever - ever
jocular.
Decisions .
Scottish I suppose, bugger it.
As Wyatt is hauled into a machine to have his good-natured brain sucked
out the back of his head I begin to wonder if I’ve made the right decision, if
I’ve just sacrificed the wrong soldier - from the wrong side of the Atlantic
(the ever-present spectre of nationalism does funny things to the mind). As
fate would have it I’m given a good long while to think about this, because
shortly after escaping with my non-sacrificial comrade, B.J. is nicked by
shrapnel, ending up in a coma for fourteen years, a span which is tastefully
cut down to a two minute time lapse. While he has far longer to agonise over
this decision than myself, I still feel pretty rough as the seasons slip by and
the camera pans to the left, the room bathed in desaturated hues and ambient
music. Ending this period of reflection, I stab a Nazi in the throat and embark
on a bloody and vengeful road trip of sorts; for the next fifteen hours I end
up being far too busy to think about poor Wyatt and my fateful choice. I think
he’s mentioned again twice.
###
When the end rolls around I am, as I’d assume is B.J., exhausted. We’ve
dashed about Europe as hard as any touring rock band - carrying about the same
amount of hardware - and it’s actually a relief to see him contemplatively roll
onto his back and call in the nuclear strike which may or may not release him
from his cycle of ever-escalating Nazi killun’. Half an hour earlier he’d
wrestled Wyatt’s jar-bound brain from a robot, ending the poor sod’s suffering
in much the same way he was now about to do for himself: with military
hardware.
The other time someone evoked Wyatt’s memory was during a little speech
from Fergus. In it he’d bemoaned B.J.’s sentimentality in saving him, saying
that they were both men of the past and that his young counterpart would have
embodied a future where striking back at the incumbent regime could have been successful. He’s upset because they are getting old and won’t
be able to hold their own for much longer - though they still look good for
fifty year olds, especially B.J. who remains buff as anything after sitting in
a chair for over a decade.
Much of the game’s story, at least with Fergus alive, is preoccupied
with dismantling the action-hero archetype. It’s the end of the line for their
type of masculinity - the old-world military patriarchy - as they age and are
not replaced by equally square-headed gents, even if, for all intents and
purposes, the B.J. of The New Order is as potent as the one in Wolfenstein 3D. That it is only said somewhat diminishes the thrust of the sentiment -
and I’m almost certain that the bomb isn’t going to land on B.J., forcing any
future Wolfenstein projects to be fronted by New Strong Female of the moment,
Anya - but, to follow a sad line of thinking, at least it’s striving toward
something.
Once it’s all over - the whole sorry, jingoistic, frivolous affair (I’m
almost certain that these aspects of it are calculated and deliberate: a
derision of the series' thematic constraints, possibly) - I’m pushed, as is the
way with the post-credits videogame, back to the main menu. Navigating to the
“Chapters” section I’m confronted with two columns: the “Fergus Timeline”, all
decked out with names and little memory-jogging thumbnails, and a morose,
post-prophetically (if one can say that) empty “Wyatt Timeline”, reminding me
of what could have been.
There’s no way to easily go back and pursue this train of thought. I
can’t hit a button and load right back to that decision which shaped, in what
I’d assume is a very superficial way, pretty much my whole experience of the
game. If I feel the urge to see what nineteen sixty Nazi-occupied Europe would
look like with Wyatt as ‘my boy’, I have to go right back. Back past The
Decision itself, back past B.J. being saved by a plucky soldier with a grenade,
back past the beaches and the shooting, back past the AA guns, back past the
late title card and back past the beginning of the game. To try again and see
the world from another perspective I have to do just that: there’s no
shortcut.
So just like all those stupid evenings where you say you’ll go to bed
early but still end up staying up too late, thus making yourself extra
vulnerable to the effects of the libations you are to consume the following day
- at a special event that’s been planned for months - you are, essentially,
tied to your decisions whether you like it or not. No amount of grovelling
self-pity (we’re all just seeking personally-approved absolution if we’re being
honest) is going to change what we did. Whether we’re happy with our actions is
wholly irrelevant: we did what we did, we’re stuck.
I’m glad The New Order contains this little ‘fuck you’ to its players if I’m being honest. “If
you want to play the game again” I hear it say “then be my guest, but bugger me
if you’re doing it in an attempt to nurse your own personal guilt or re-imagine
my already re-imagined history: that isn’t the way this works.” Life is too
short to worry about the way you did things in the past, especially considering
you more than likely cocked it up spectacularly. The New Order tells you that if you want to see how thing ‘could’ve
gone’ then you’re more than welcome to; just be prepared to graft and
repeat yourself in order to sate your debilitating curiosity and self-loathing.
I’ve personally done enough things I’d rather not relive to know better.
Which is why I gave a little sigh at the sight of “Wyatt’s Timeline”, poured
one out for him and turned off the TV: it’s best to just let the past lie where
it is.
###
The above prose is proud to be associated with Critical Distance's Blogs of the Round Table, an initiative which seeks to bring the diverse voices of video game criticism together about the person of a once again monthly topic. I think it's dead good, and so do these lovely individuals:
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