Nostalgia for action-packed first-person shooters from the 90s and early 2000s is reaching a peak. Whether it's 3D Realms' resurgence with upcoming games like Graven, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, and SiN: Reloaded, or new developers like New Blood Interactive with Dusk, Ultrakill, and others, the genre is being revitalized. However, there's also the more traditional method of paying tribute, like with fangame Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony.
Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony is heavily inspired by both Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, delivering a story-based experience building upon Wolfenstein 3D with gameplay closer to the original Doom. Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony has already had two major chapters released over the years, but now it's ready to drop its biggest and most exciting update yet. Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony - Chapter 3: The Final Confrontation is arriving on April 30.
Chapter 3: The Final Confrontation isn't just another chapter of Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony, however. It's also a massive update to previously released content. In the third chapter of Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony, enemy and ally AI is going to be improved with dodging and taking cover, post-processing shaders are being implemented for better visual effects, new weapons and enemies are being added, and both chapter one and chapter two are being revamped for a more polished overall experience.
The result is that Chapter 3: The Final Confrontation adds a total of 16 additional maps to Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony, each progressing the game's story closer to its ultimate conclusion. Combined with chapter one and chapter two, that makes for a total of 35 stages for players to complete. That may not compare to Wolfenstein 3D's sixty levels, but it makes Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony a massive fangame.
As with any fangame, the completion of Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony is impressive to a degree that most of its players will never understand. The team behind Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony has been working on it for around six years, with all of its team members working remotely. The diversity of the development team even allowed the project to be translated into ten different languages. All of the work was done entirely without pay, otherwise Bethesda would have likely shut the project down.
The complete Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony will be playable standalone. It doesn't require ownership of any other game, as the developers have built it from the ground up. To play Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony upon its release, interested fans just have to visit its official website, download the game, extract it from a zip file, and get to shooting.
Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony releases April 30 on PC.
Source: Blade of Agony