Wolfsschanze – Operation Götterdämmerung Review

Wolfsschanze – Operation Götterdämmerung is set in 1944 in East Russia where an elite soldier needs to infiltrate the Wolf’s Lair; one of the most dangerous places during the Second World War. You’ll need to fight through waves of heavily guarded facilities and a myriad of obstacles to reach your goal: a face to face showdown with Hitler.

Wolfsschanze – Operation Götterdämmerung is a standard first person shooter, FPS, where players are dropped into a map with a handful of objectives to complete before being able to exfiltrate from the area. While you begin with a simple pistol, you’ll be able to pick up new weapons from dead enemies. Some vehicles can be used to ride around the map.

Killing enemies and completing objectives reward players with XP. This accumulated XP will unlock new weapons to use from the get-go. When you start a mission, you’re given the choice to select your loadout. Obviously, when you first start, you’ll only have a trusty pistol, but the more missions you complete and XP you earn, you’ll able to choose from a myriad of firepower.

You can also drive specific vehicles found throughout the map. The driving mechanic feels unbalanced however; braking barely works and yet it feels like you drive at 100 MPH (I doubt these cars were built to go that fast during that era). At least it’s a simpler way to make your way around the map.

Unfortunately, the walk from your spawning point to the points of interest is still tedious. Once you’ve accumulated enough XP and ranked up, you can enable the OSS event which is to kill Hitler alongside a handful of secondary events.

The game looks ok I’d say. It won’t compare to the Call of Duty’s or Wolfensteins of this world, but the environments are vast and there’s quite a bit to explore. Lots of environmental assets load, right before your eyes, as you walk around. The map also feels dead; while yes you’ll find enemies scattered and spawning here and there, there’s no activity. No enemy vehicles surveying the area, no soldiers covering the whole area. There’s also no soundtrack/score. You hear nature’s sounds, your footsteps and enemy soldiers yapping.

The game’s biggest issue is that it feels unfinished. In some levels, the grass and the surroundings spawn as you walk through the area. Even enemies will pop up in the distance as you move through the area. Also for some reason, when inside buildings, the lighting becomes either sunset or piss colored. Every time you complete objectives, you’re back at the start of the game.

The weapon selection wheel is also incredibly clunky. The A.I. is as dumb as a doorknob. During firefights, some enemy soldiers will turn around as if they never saw you. And for some reason, when soldiers get too close, your character auto-aims in the crotch/thigh area.

I was hoping Wolfsschanze – Operation Götterdämmerung would fill that void left by the old school Wolfenstein games from the original Xbox era, but unfortunately, it falls flat. It feels like an alpha version of a game that a developer would present to a publisher as a concept. While the shooting feels tight and solid, the rest of the game is lackluster. Wolfsschanze – Operation Götterdämmerung had a lot of potential, a few more months or years in the proverbial oven, a better mission structure and more enemies could’ve made this a surprise hit.