When Wolfenstein: Youngblood launches on July 26, it will be the first game in the long-running series to not feature B.J. Blazkowicz as the protagonist. Instead, the sequel to Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus will star his twin daughters, Jess and Soph Blazkowicz. Another big change is that its the first entry in the new cycle of Wolfenstein games to not be solely developed by MachineGames. Youngblood is being co-developed by MachineGames and Arkane Studios, best known for the Dishonored series.
Even with these changes to the formula, Youngblood is still a game about killing Nazis from a first-person perspective. Essentially, it’s more Wolfenstein, but with some new tweaks to the formula that make it especially intriguing. Here’s everything we know about Wolfenstein: Youngblood ahead of its launch on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.
Whereas Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was a direct sequel to The New Order, Youngblood isn’t the third entry in the series’ reboot. Instead, it’s a standalone spinoff set in 1980, two decades after the events of The New Colossus. This release format mirrors that of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, which acted as a spinoff prequel to The New Order.
As such, don’t expect Youngblood to have as meaty of a campaign as The New Order or The New Colossus. The Old Blood took roughly six hours to complete, and we could see a similar runtime for Youngblood.
The E3 2018 teaser trailer introduced us to Soph and Jess Blazkowicz, the twin daughters of B.J. Blazkowicz. The recent story trailer revealed more information about what to expect from a series that, as of late, has had some of the most gripping narratives in the first-person shooter genre.
B.J. used a fake identity to leave the United States four weeks before the start of the game. His last known location was Paris, which is currently occupied by the Nazis. Jess and Soph head to Paris to push the Nazis out of France and locate their father. It appears that they’ll get the help of the FBI, and FBI resources on their journey. As the story trailer demonstrates, the Nazis are looking for Jess and Soph, whom they have dubbed “The Terror Twins.”
The story trailer shows that Soph and Jess have the affinity for killing Nazis as their father. The weapons on display in the trailers are similar to what we’ve seen in previous Wolfenstein games — machine guns, rifles, etc. Youngblood is very much a traditional first-person shooter based on what we’ve seen so far. Fans of the previous entries will be familiar with the loop. As shown above, giant mech Nazi returns. Considering it takes place two decades after New Colossus, we imagine technology has improved even further in this futuristic alternate history. Basically, we expect even crazier looking foes.
But Jess and Soph also receive futuristic power suits. These power suits look really cool, and they figure to come with unique abilities, too. Bethesda has said that you’ll unlock new abilities and gadgets throughout the adventure. So it seems likely that at least some of these will be tied to the suits. It also appears that these power suits might actually be stolen Nazi property, as the trailer says the twins are in “possession of contraband.”
The twins will set up shop in the Parisian Catacombs. From there, you can choose which order you want to complete missions. This doesn’t mean Youngblood is an open world game — just that the linear missions don’t follow a set-in-stone progression. This is a change from recent Wolfenstein games, and it will be interesting to see how the non-linearity affects the storytelling. But this change also means that you can expect side missions to dig into between the mainline missions.
Going hand-in-hand with the non-linearity, Youngblood adds role-playing game-style progression. As you complete missions and side missions, you’ll increase your level. New levels bring on new ways to destroy Nazis, as you’ll unlock fresh abilities, gadgets, and earn attachments to modify weapons. You’ll also earn cosmetic items through play.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood will feature a handful of updated weapons from the series, and a few new weapons, too. Here are the weapons we know about so far (italic denotes new weapon):
Since Youngblood has two protagonists, it makes sense that co-op would be an option. And it is, which represents a big change for the traditionally single-player franchise. You can play through the entirety of the campaign with a friend — one of you controlling Jess and the other playing as Soph.
If you purchase the Deluxe Edition, you’ll get a Buddy Pass. This lets a friend download a copy of the game on their console or PC for free, so you can play together. Though your buddy doesn’t have to purchase their own copy, they can only play it with you when you’re online.
If you prefer to play Youngblood solo, you can absolutely do that. The other twin will be controlled by the CPU in solo mode.
Youngblood doesn’t have loot boxes, but it does have micro-transactions for cosmetic items such as skins. But many of these items will also be available for purchase with in-game currency.
Bethesda and Nvidia partnered for a pretty neat promotion for Youngblood. If you buy select RTX 20-series GeForce products from now until August 6, you’ll get a PC copy of Youngblood for free. This includes RTX 20-series graphics cards, as well as laptops and desktops. A full list of GeForce products that qualify for the promotion can be found here.
The promotion seeks to highlight the advanced ray tracing lighting effects and adaptive shading that Nvidia’s RTX 20-series graphics cards can deliver if you have a powerful rig.
The standard edition goes for $30. Pre-ordering nets you a handful of goodies, including the New Colossus power suit skin and U.S. Army power suit skin. You’ll also get two Old Blood weapons, a pipe and knife, and a WW2 weapon skin kit for ranged weapons.
The deluxe edition costs $40. In addition to the standard edition pre-order bonuses, you’ll also get the Cyborg Skin Pack. It includes a character skin, armor-boosting pep signal, and titanium alloy skins for all guns, the hatchet, and knife.
The main draw of the deluxe edition is the aforementioned Buddy Pass, which gives one friend access to Youngblood on their console and PC so you can play the campaign together. Remember, though, those using the Buddy Pass can only play Youngblood with the friend who gifted them the code.
The Switch version of the game, both standard and deluxe versions, will only be available as a download code. You can buy a retail box, but only a download voucher will be inside. Development for the Switch version is led by Panic Button, the studio behind Switch ports of Doom, The New Colossus, and numerous other successful Switch ports.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood launches July 26 on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.