Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Has hot women but where are the hot men?!?!?!?

Number 1 in the world!

It's a simple, no - nonsense, fast - paced, old - school shooter, but it's also so bare to the point of being dull. Not to mention, they don't always get the difficulty balance right; sparse ammo and health drops at times, leading to tough sections which require upwards of 10 quickloads.

Also, what is it with god - awful sound mixing on older PC games? I needed to literally triple the volume during cutscenes just to hear the dialogue, and even that's almost drowned out by bizarrely loud music. Speaking of cutscenes, they and the mission briefs / documents slow down the experience with a hollow story.

lovely game

This and age of empires 2 were responsible for my PC game awakening, and I will forever love and cherish this game till the day I die.

Really epic game

Best game ever to come on planet earth
10/10

American unipolar moment, now just copy China.

This was such a fun shooter!

Return to Castle Wolfenstein may not be the best first person shooter of the early 2000s, but it’s certainly up there. This game is like every WWII action movie trope rolled into a single game, and for that it fucking rules. The plot is all over the place, mostly in a good way, and the atmosphere and music is fantastic. If it weren’t for a few annoying enemies and levels, this game would be pretty much perfect.

There’s something about this era of shooters and their atmospheres that is special. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a prime example of this, and fits alongside Max Payne and Halo: Combat Evolved. I don’t know what it is, but the sharp angled sparse environments, real photos slapped onto low-poly models, and light interactivity with the world just hit different compared to the densely packed environments games are capable of today. I think it’s that last part that’s key. Moments in this game that stand out to me are ones that are entirely the cause of my actions. Early on in the game, I was sneaking up on some guards in a castle hallway having a conversation so that I could get the drop on them when they were done. But as I was sneaking up, I bumped into a decorative set of armor and it fell over; at which point the guards immediately spotted me and raised the alarm, causing an intense firefight and chase throughout the castle until I made my escape. It felt like a scene out of Indiana Jones.

Speaking of Indiana Jones, the first two missions feel like they could’ve been the plot to one of those movies. Escaping an old castle filled with Nazis, then finding out that they released zombies and other supernatural creatures in an attempt to find an ancient artifact that ends up killing the “main” villain is just an incredible ride. Oh and don’t forget the team of hot Nazi special-ops witches that literally look like Elsa Schneider from The Last Crusade, but in spandex. I have never seen a game reach such insane peaks in just the opening hours. Unfortunately, there was just no way that it could’ve kept this pace going for the entire game.

By far the worst part of this game, and probably a stopping point for many who didn’t finish this game, is the third mission, specifically the forest level. It’s bad enough that the entire mission feels like a detour from what was just set up previously, but this level is also a horrible forced stealth section. It’s not the only one in the game, but this one takes place in such an open environment that it’s incredibly easy to be spotted, and the guards in the watch tower have an alarm right next to them so they can immediately trigger it after finding you; making it one of the most frustrating sections of the game. Still, the rest of the mission where you blow up a prototype rocket and steal an experimental jet is great and makes up for the bad intro.

This trend of “quality mission on its own, but doesn’t really fit into the grand narrative” describes most of the game. Each one of them feels like a plot from a different WWII action movie, but with the barest of plot bones connecting them in the form of boring exposition cutscenes. Part of the problem is that the stakes are set so high after the crypt that it’s so jarring to just drop it. Maybe if the missions were rearranged, it would flow more naturally.

The weapon and enemy variety are both pretty great. Each weapon, besides the pistol, feels like it serves a purpose in combat and there is plenty of overlap between them all so it doesn’t feel like a combat puzzle game. While the majority of weapons are your standard WWII era weapons, the fictional experimental ones look and feel awesome. Enemies range from all sorts of military personnel to paranormal and sci-fi monsters. However, the weapon accuracy and enemy damage feels all over the place. Firing in bursts generally works, but I should never not drop a standard enemy after mag dumping them at point blank range. Yet that happens quite a bit near the end of the game, and I can’t figure out if it’s because the weapon accuracy is bad or if enemies in those levels suddenly got a huge health buff. Grenades also look and feel incredibly weak. BJ Blazkowicz has a laughably weak arm in this game and can barely chuck a grenade more than 3 feet.

Since this game is old and runs on an old engine, there are definitely some compatibility problems. None of them are particularly hard to deal with, and there is a fan patch that fixed the crashing that happened every time I died and also added widescreen support. I used ioRTCW as it is much closer to the original experience, but RealRTCW is a borderline remaster that fixes a lot of bugs and adds new features as well. Both are great options, the important thing is that you play this game because it’s some of the most fun you can have killing Nazis.

I view this one as a nice mix between Medal of Honor/Old CoD X Half-Life when it comes to gameplay. I know Wolfenstein as a franchise is the father of all that, but this entry is without a doubt comparable its contemporaries. I played the game without any additional content, but via ioRTCW, the sourceport realRTCW is based on. I think it's worth a playthrough or more because it is fun. I can only speak for the vanilla experience and it's certainly a good game that can stand on its own, but it feels old especially when it comes to the enemy AI. If you can't bear dated AI, maybe try the mod.

Long story short, you get to slaughter hordes of nazis. Can't ask for more, shooting down fascists with style never gets old.

If this game got remastered, it would have potential to be the greatest video game of all time and im not even overexaggerating

is good

Start of the Iconic Triology.
This is my opinion one of the best originals that they have made to the sequence that has followed and has gained so much traction, I remember playing this as i was growing up and was efatuated with everything that it had to offer from the german mad scientists that seeked out the great mysterious relics that were to give eternal life, to the final boss. That they made super hard at the time. Probably not anymore now. This game will always live rent free in my head of all of the good times I had and have played this game.

It's still fun.

Most guides will recommend installing RealRtCW through Steam, but my suggestion is to download ioRTCW, a source port, and Venom, a texture/graphical update that can be found on ModDB. Follow the instructions to NOT use Venom's updated AI--it makes the game a too difficult, imo, and is targeted towards people who have played the game before. RealRtCW is very good, many people might find it more enjoyable than the original RtCW, but it makes a LOT of changes to the game, so I don't recommend it.

RtCW is a Quake III engine game, which means the movement might be a little more glidey than folks used to more modern shooters might expect, but ultimately the game's still a blast. The gist isn't too complicated: the natsies are up to no good, and your job is to blast them and their diabolical creations, supernatural and sci-fi.

Some tips: The best way to stop enemies is to keep them at a distance. Your accuracy will always outclass the AI's, so you can dispatch natsies without taking too much damage yourself. Crouching improves accuracy immensely.

Overall, this game is primarily fun for people who remember it as a release title looking to relive the early '00s, but it still retains enough fun that it might be interesting for new players if you can catch it at a deep discount. I would recommend Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, which is free, and the 32bit ETLegacy (the most modern engine) for anyone curious for a multiplayer experience. There is still an active playerbase, and the team-based gameplay is still thrilling and takes better advantage of the Quake III engine's strengths. Just make sure you use the 32-bit ETLegacy, NOT the 64-bit, as all active servers play using mods that are not compatible with the 64 bit engine.

Legend.

Very Good!

Wolfenstein: Return to Castle

Its a very good game from the 2000s !

+ Nice history
+ Good maps to do the missions

9/10

You play on the wrong team

Old but gold.

Best of all the Wolfenstein games, easily.

Played it as a kid, finished it right now without any patches on Win 11, I can recommend it throughtout my hearth. It's a short, but solid FPS with some interesting missions. I played on hardest difficulty without each secret collection, but timespan should be somewhat similar. Don't expect much, but it's fun, as well as you can somewhat make difference approach in some missions. Truly, a well-aged gem from the good old times.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein was many things, one of the last true classic shooters (Boomer shooters), the first follow-up to the first first person shooter (I don't count tank simulators), and an overall phenominal shooter that makes you feel like a true nazi killing badass. I honestly don't have anything bad to say about this game, I love it too much and have no problems with it (except some problems that naturally arise from trying to run a game this old on a newer machine such as trying to make it look good, and getting randomly kicked, but a good remaster would fix that (Fingers crossed)) basically just go play it, what're you waiting for?

So much fun.

Sometimes you just want to go back to another time and place with Wolfenstein and with RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN, the nostalgia is in REAL TIME!

It is a classic Wolfenstein game, I think this is the best Wolfenstein game ever. Perhaps it is nostalgia talking, since I played through this game at leas 50 times as teenager, but for me story and gameplay come together into a perfect mix. Highly recommended.

PRETTY COOL OLD SCHOOL WWII GAME!

Haven't had this much fun playing a video game since forever. There's something so alluring about its atmosphere that it hooked me from the get-go despite whatever shortcomings it might have on the gameplay front, so much so that I'd prefer this to the MachineGames reboot any day. I played the vanilla version - since that's the way I prefer it in general - with a widescreen fix, and other than a single crash, had next to nil technical issues. Looking forward to save scumming my way through this masterpiece again.

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played it very often , finished this game several time before buying it on steam , still a great wolfenstein experience with fantastic level design , visuals and A.I that where great compared to when this game came out.

now you can even use mods like RealRTCW to experience this game again in a new and fresh way.

With this game which my uncle showed me when I was a kiddo, I totally fell in love with video games. I really enjoy playing this game and yes, it may be nostalgia but who tf cares. Perfect game, perfect gameplay, perfect story.

This game is my favourite one from my childhood and damn playing it back after all this years with nostalgia hitting you every corner is so great.
Also, while playing it back, it makes you realise how silly it is LMAO I love my mental support chair going thru it all with me, hes the real one
10/10 would recommend i love this silly game

Despite being a lot older than the newer Wolfenstein games, this title is so much better than them. An action packed FPS adventure with an interesting plot and large maps that reward exploration and investigation. The AI is better as well and the boss design is awesome to boot. A great game!

I haven't played a good FPS in a while & I gotta say, the devs nailed it.

Retro game that is pretty good.

awesome sauce and probs the best game in the wolfenstein series imo. its nostalgic and overall a solid personal 10/10. the shooting system isnt too over-complicated but not too easy either.. its, like, the perfect mix of difficult and super awesome.. totally play this (especially because, due to the price, its extremely mega worth it xp)

The game crashes often when you load a save or die.
It seems to be an alright/good game, but I can't recommend buying something that crashes this often.

Still holds up

Game is GOOD, bugs are awful. Cyberpunk 2099: the sequel.
Can't even QUICKLOAD for the love of god. Loading a game from the start menu will straight up crash the game. It's a 50/50 chance of even loading my save. This fucking port sucks.

Anyways, still worth it. The game is pretty good

One of the titles that changed the course of FPS games, and one of the best WW2 games!
Pros:
-Atmosphere
-Weapons
-Environments
-The undead vs germans vs you, never knowing where you might get attacked from
-The ahem.. elite guard

Cons:
-The issues of it being an old game, but either a patch or the RTCW mod can enhance and fix the technical issues

One of the games that is worth playing at any time and having it in your library

heavily recommend! this has been my favorite first person shooter since i was 6 or 7yrs old. in my opinion better tha ndoom but i love classic doom and doom 64 is pretty good. verys alot of things they got right about the nzais in this game. even the music is genuine

This game is a lot like the N64 007 games, I absolutely love it, but do save often, because there are no checkpoints, so if you die you restart the whole level. Other than that, it is an amazing game and I love it!!!!

I made some hamster tacos last week....they were horrible.

Best game ever. Realistic effects loved this game.

Nightdive Studios, please do your thing

Used to play when I was a kid, love it and know it by heart

OLD but GOLD

still great

One of the best games I've ever played! It's in my top five along with MaxPayne, Mafia and Bioshock! The latest RTCW upgrade to version 5 is a huge fail and it disappointed me! The classic Return to Castle Wolfenstein is the best, in graphics, weapons, movement, tension, suspense everything! I highly recommend it!

I shoot the bad guys and they blow up.