Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

There are few things in this world as unsettling as walking down the street in a Nazi-fied American town. Though the version of that world only exists in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, it's a harrowing bit of revisionist history that puts you on edge the moment BJ steps out into Roswell's main street in 1961. Nazis and Third Reich imagery is plastered all over, with plenty of white people in the streets celebrating a parade. Making things even more alien were the posters of "Terror-Billy" plastered over every open space that wasn't already filled with fascist propaganda or decoration. In Wolfenstein II, you may be stepping into the shoes of a resistance hero, but in the Nazi-occupied United States, BJ Blazkowicz is public enemy number one.

For a franchise built on the back of Mecha-Hitler, what Machine Games did with the Wolfenstein franchise in 2014 was exceptional — and that was before modern-day America had a Nazi problem. Three years doesn't seem like a long enough time for the cultural climate to have shifted as much as it has between 2014 and 2017, but Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is releasing in a very strange time. There's more than a bit of catharsis in continuing BJ Blazkowicz's quest to rid the world of Nazis, but it would be meaningless without Machine Games' excellent gameplay and witty, frightening story holding it all together.