''Beyond Castle Wolfenstein'' is a 1984

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

stealth game A stealth game is a type of video game in which the player primarily uses ''stealth'' to avoid or overcome opponents. Games in the genre typically allow the player to remain undetected by hiding, sneaking, or using disguises. Some games allow th ...

. A direct sequel to ''

Castle Wolfenstein ''Castle Wolfenstein'' is a 1981 action-adventure game that was developed by Muse Software for the Apple II home computer. It is one of the earliest games to be based on stealth mechanics. An Atari 8-bit family port was released in 1982 and w ...

'', it is the second game in the ''

Wolfenstein ''Wolfenstein'' is a series of World War II video games originally developed by Muse Software. The majority of the games follow William "B.J." Blazkowicz, an American Army captain and his fight against the Axis powers. Earlier titles are cente ...

'' series, and the last installment to be released by original developer

Muse Software Micro Users Software Exchange, Inc., doing business as Muse Software, was an American video game developer based in Baltimore, Maryland, focusing on the development of games for the first generation of home computers. The company began with de ...

before the name was revived for a

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...

in 1991. ''Castle Wolfenstein'' was written solely by Silas Warner for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

, while the sequel was developed simultaneously for the Apple II and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness W ...

by Warner, Eric Ace, and Frank Svoboda III. It was quickly ported to the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...

Gameplay

Like its predecessor, ''Beyond Castle Wolfenstein'' is a combination action and

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based ...

with stealth elements. It is set in

during

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

's rule as

Chancellor of Germany The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...

. The objective is to traverse the levels of the secret Berlin

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...

where the

Führer ( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...

is holding meetings with his senior staff. The player must retrieve a bomb that operatives have hidden inside the bunker, place it outside the room where Hitler is holding a meeting, and escape before the bomb explodes. The game shows a top-down view of each room, though the characters are from a side view. The player explores the levels by sneaking by, impersonating, and sometimes killing opponents. The game is controlled via a

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal cont ...

paddles A paddle is a handheld tool with an elongated handle and a flat, widened distal end (i.e. the ''blade''), used as a lever to apply force onto the bladed end. It most commonly describes a completely handheld tool used to propel a human-powere ...

, or the

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...

, although the keyboard is the only option that allows for all commands. The play is similar to its predecessor, but with some updates. The guards use a pass system, in which the player is periodically summoned by guards and asked to show the correct pass (which varies by floor), or offer a bribe. If an incorrect pass is shown or the bribe is rejected due to the lack of money (for a total of two times), the guard will attempt to activate a bunker-wide alarm or kill the player. The bodies of dead guards can be dragged through the room to conceal them, block passages, or gain access to objects. The

grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade ge ...

s of the previous game have been replaced with a dagger which can silently kill guards. Upon successful completion of the game, the player is rewarded with a high resolution image of the bunker exploding with the player running away in the foreground.

Reception

Harvey Berstein of '' Antic'' wrote in 1985 of the Atari 8-bit version: "while there have been some minor improvements, the game play doesn't provide nearly as much depth as the documentation suggests." He criticized the game for having the same Apple II-like graphics as its predecessor and slow loading speed. He also pointed out, "Once you know which passes to use, you can breeze through the game", discouraging replay. In January 1985, ''Computer Entertainer'' rated the Atari 8-bit version 5½ out of 8 stars. A 1991 ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly throug ...

'' survey of strategy and war games gave it two stars out of five.

References

* ''Ahoy!'' July 1984. * ''Atari Computer Enthusiasts''. March 1985. * ''Personal Software''. August 1984. * ''Softalk''. July 1984. * ''Video Game Update''. July 1984.

External links

*
''Beyond Castle Wolfenstein''
at Atari Mania * * {{Muse Software 1984 video games Apple II games Atari 8-bit family games Commercial video games with freely available source code Commodore 64 games Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler Muse Software games Single-player video games Stealth video games Video games about Nazi Germany Video games developed in the United States Wolfenstein World War II video games