Let’s not reinvent the wheel, here.

Since I was young, I have always been a fan of Wolfenstein. I started with Wolfenstein 3D and have played pretty much every game since. With the resurgence of The New Order, Machine Games has really stepped it up with the Nazi extermination business, and continuing with the tradition of having a few side spinoffs, they recruited Arkane Studios to help out with Youngblood.

Taking place in 1980, BJ Blazkowicz has disappeared somewhere in France and his twin daughters Sophia and Jessica decide to steal an FBI helicopter and head to Neu-Paris to find him. When they arrive, they hook up with the new French resistance and search for clues regarding dear old dad.

Platforms: XB1, PS4, PC
MSRP: $29.99
Price I’d pay: $20

Youngblood takes a different approach to the overall gameplay with a major emphasis on co-op play. In fact, even when playing solo, players will still have an AI controlled partner that they must cooperate with in order to get objectives done. Partners can revive downed players as well as give buffs to each other like a bump in armor or health. The biggest kicker is that each character uses shared lives. If both characters go down, they lose a life, lose all three and they’re sent back to base with a nice mission failed. Luckily, players can find extra lives in the areas, but they are as abundant as one might think.

Anyone who has played The New Colossus will find the moment to moment gameplay familiar, particularly after BJ gets his upgraded suit. Soph and Jess start off with the suits and within a few hours can be leveled up with even more perks and powers. That’s another change. Players’ profiles will level up with each completed mission and kill. Along the way, they will find and earn coins that can be used to upgrade their weapons as well. Weapon upgrades come in different varieties that can also give set bonuses depending on what they have equipped. These changes make it feel like Wolfenstein has turned to Destiny or The Division for some aspects.

I can also see the Arkane influence in the level designs. The twins quickly make their way to a hub world where they can receive missions to take on. They pick and choose where they want to go via a map and then load up the level. While in the levels, which are essentially a section of Neu-Paris, they can go for mission objectives, either main story or side missions, as they see fit. It feels very open ended and while that is fine, I found that even missions that I was high enough level for would have me going against enemies that were obviously not in my level wheelhouse. I would constantly find myself getting one-shotted while exploring the areas, and with a game that is open like this with multiple secret areas and collectables to pick up, it felt almost like it was punishing me for taking the different route.

With some scattered boss fights that revolve around shooting something until it dies while running around an arena, it really lacked in the skill and fun factor. On top of that, solo play was a chore since the AI partner was pretty much only used as a meat shield distraction that would at least pick me up when I went down. Co-op is really the only way to fully enjoy Youngblood.
I do need to mention the microtransactions because to the day of this writing, they still confuse me at times. Silver Coins are the in-game currency that can be found, earned, and picked up while playing the game. This is used for weapons upgrades as well as some other things. Gold Bars are the premium currency that can be purchased using real money and are used for cosmetic items like different suit colors, new helmets, etc. BUT, at a time, boosters that would aid the player with more XP or more ammo and such could have been purchased using Gold Bars. This has since been patched, but was still very confusing for me at the time of my playing. Either way, it’s not a PvP game, so having an “advantage” isn’t that big of a deal.

The one big thing that bothered me was the twins themselves. I found both characters annoying and with their repeated spouting off one liners, it got old within about two hours, but I had to listen to it because there were voice line queues that would let me know of things happening during gameplay.

In the end, Youngblood is a budget priced spinoff that works in the gameplay department just like the previous games, but lacks in a lot of other areas. I would suggest it to players that have a co-op partner to play with and with the Deluxe Edition, a co-op pass code is available. Even then, players may find themselves burned out on this one much faster than the mainline games that came before it.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.