Only Bethesda Would Have Made Wolfenstein II, Creative Director Says

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was critically praised as an excellent story-driven first-person shooter. Fans of great narratives absolutely loved the game’s whole deal and the absence of multiplayer and microtransactions was a blessing to many. As the title’s creative director notes, however, only Bethesda would have greenlit such a project.

Jens Matthies recently spoke to GamesBeat about Wolfenstein II to discuss many of the game’s aspects after launch. As the one responsible for bringing many of the game’s creative properties to life, which made it one of the best titles of recent years, Matthies has some leeway to discuss what made it so special.

During the course of the interview, the creative director also noted how other publishers would have turned down the proposal to make the FPS due to its nature. With the absence of many of the things that are associated with today’s shooters, namely the multiplayer aspect that yields so much microtransaction revenue, companies other than Bethesda would have been turned off by Wolfenstein II.

“I don’t think there’s really anything alike in the games we’re making,” Matthies said. “They’re first-person shooters, fundamentally, but in terms of the vibe and the twists and turns of the story beats – basically, I don’t think any other publisher would greenlight these projects.”

Then again, it seems the developers are quite pleased with how the game turned out in the end. Matthies reveals that he is particularly happy with the reception of the game.

“I’m extremely happy about the reception it’s received, which I think is especially rewarding for me, because it’s going to some pretty extreme places. It’s very gratifying as a creator to have such universal acclaim for the game, because it’s quite controversial in many ways, and that can be polarizing. I’m happy that people get what the game is doing,” Matthies said.

As Comicbook.com notes, Bethesda is one of the few remaining AAA video game publishers that still focuses on single-player, narrative-rich titles. Many others have chosen to invest heavily in multiplayer, often to the degradation of the quality of the story.