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CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN (1981): ACHTUNG! STEALTH GAMING STEPS OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Silas Warner's Castle Wolfenstein, published by Muse in 1981 for the Apple II (later ported to Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and PC) laid the foundation and set the standard for all other games of stealth. Set during World War II, Castle Wolfenstein puts the player in the boots of an Allied prisoner. The prisoner's mission is not only to escape the heavily guarded dungeon in which he is imprisoned, but also to steal Nazi war plans hidden elsewhere in the castle. This exciting setting creates the perfect environment for the game's emphasis on stealth. Years before games like Konami's Metal Gear (1987, MSX2; and later in a modified form for other platforms), Castle Wolfenstein and its 1984 sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, PC), demonstrated that cleverly avoiding enemies can be just as fun as blowing them to bits.

One of the first things new players notice about Castle Wolfenstein is the depth and variety of its control options. On the Apple II version, there are options for the keyboard, paddles, or two-button joystick. However, only the keyboard option provides access to all commands; the space bar is used for searching and unlocking, the “T” key is used to throw a grenade, the “U” key is used to utilize a chest's contents, and the “Return” key is used to list the character's inventory. Control is based on separate and very deliberate movement and aiming, though simultaneous movement and independent aiming can be difficult or even impossible depending on the configuration.¹ Atari 8-bit owners can play with the keyboard alone or in conjunction with one or two single-button joysticks;² the Commodore 64 and PC allow for a keyboard or a single joystick (one button on the former system, two on the latter). Needless to say, the variety of control options not only indicate the game's depth, but allow for different styles of play, including the participation of a second player.

Pictured on top of an Apple lie with black paddles is the packaging for a later release of Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple II, with its iconic cover art and award note for Electronic Games magazine's 1983 Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Achievement. The inside back of the manual listing Muse's software catalog touts the game as “The #1 Best Selling Game in America!.”

Besides control options, the only other major differences between the versions are the visuals, and even those only vary cosmetically in color and detail. In each case, Castle Wolfenstein sports an unusual perspective. Each room is displayed from an overhead view, but the characters and objects are displayed from the side. Though the animation is jerky, the modified perspective and simple visuals set against a black background work well. It's easy to identify everything and know exactly where you are, an example that many modern 3D first- and third-person perspective games have failed to follow. In addition, regardless of what is happening, everything takes place on the current room screen, including informational text. The player is never taken away from the action.

Each room in the castle either has a doorway leading to another room or a stairway leading to another level. Other room elements are various combinations of interior doors, guards, and chests. Chests can be searched for useful items such as keys, and not-so-useful items, such as Eva Braun's diary,³ which have zero impact on gameplay. Food items are typically in the not-so-useful, zero-impact category, save for alcoholic beverages, which if chugged will temporarily impair player control until the drunken stupor wears off.

Searching a chest in Castle Wolfenstein.

Guards can be searched (like chests), either when held up at gunpoint or when dead. Unlike a chest, which can take some time to unlock and search, searching a guard produces nearly instant results. Items are automatically transferred to the player's inventory if they are needed or exceed present supply, but the maximum is 10 bullets, three grenades, keys, a bulletproof vest, a uniform, and the war plans for Operation Rheingold.

When the prisoner is spotted by a guard from a distance, the guard will shout German-language commands like “Achtung!” (“Attention!”) or “Halt!” (“Stop!”). If the prisoner stops, the guard will typically approach and touch (capture) him, effectively ending the game. If the prisoner flees, the guard will open fire. If the guard succeeds in killing the prisoner (which, realistically, occurs after only a few shots), the game also ends immediately.

The player can hold up a guard by surprising him with a drawn gun. Unfortunately, in one of a small handful of unfortunate design decisions, once held up and searched, guards cannot be disabled. The player must either quickly flee or just kill the guard anyway—assuming he has enough bullets. Indeed, bullet management is the key to the game. Ammunition tends to be sparsely available, and a clip can't be replenished, merely replaced with one containing more bullets. Players intending to “run and gun” their way through the game will have no chance; the only way to succeed is to methodically go from room to room, avoiding guards whenever possible. Players must carefully observe the guards’ patrol patterns and walk by them when their backs are turned. Of course, guards within earshot will hear bullets and shouts, also alerting them to the player's presence and location. Interestingly, sometimes the very act of where the player kills a guard must be carefully considered; even if other guards don't hear anything, when they come across a fallen comrade, they will know something is amiss and be on alert.

The end result of searching a held-up guard in Castle Wolfenstein.

Although guns are sometimes necessary to open locked doors (if there is no key or a guard doesn't open it first), chests can also be shot one or more times to speed up the time-consuming automatic unlock and search process. Unfortunately, chests sometimes contain explosives, which blow up if shot, immediately killing the player. In short, patience is less a virtue than a requirement.

SS stormtroopers can't be fooled as easily or intimidated like normal guards. They wear bulletproof vests, thus requiring a large number of bullets or a grenade to take them down. Grenades have a large zone of destruction and must be used with great care. Destructible environments are something that today's games are still struggling to fully implement, but Castle Wolfenstein offered a form of it over a quarter century ago. Though calling Castle Wolfenstein’s environments destructible is an exaggeration, the grenade could be used to damage interior walls, adding another layer of strategy to the already nuanced gameplay. For instance, the player could blow up a wall and kill a guard behind it, or create a hole with which to shoot through. Although certainly no Crusader: No Remorse (Origin, 1995; PC, Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation) in terms of destructible, interactive environments,⁴ Warner's strategic design considerations never fail to impress.

Here, the player has procured a bulletproof vest and lobbed a grenade at the wall, which will remove two of the rectangular bricks to the lower right of the explosion. Grenades in Castle Wolfenstein can easily accidentally kill the player, but are highly effective when used correctly.

Audio is perhaps Castle Wolfenstein’s most iconic element. Although there's no music and only sparse sound effects for walking and gunshots, where the game really shines is in its use of speech synthesis. Computers with poor sound capabilities like the Apple II and PC, which typically produced beeps and clicks on their tiny internal speakers, were nevertheless coaxed to generate recognizable speech in the form of eight German phrases and a scream. For fans of the game, hearing any of these clipped phrases brings an immediate nostalgia-tinged smile to their faces.

What can get lost in the haze of nostalgia beyond long load times is each room's inanimate objects, including the walls—or, more specifically, what happens when the player accidentally walks into one of them. The result is the player being momentarily subjected to a screeching, alarm-like sound effect, flashing screen, lack of control, and the character's return to an unarmed stance. Interestingly, as one of the game's most annoying features, there is no explanation for this in the game's manual. The only possible reasons from a design standpoint would be to force the player to play the game in a more methodical manner and make a quick escape from a dangerous situation even less certain. Of course, a comparison to Warner's unstated inspiration, Berzerk (Stern Electronics, 1980; Arcade, Atari 5200, Atari VCS 2600, GCE Vectrex), sheds further light on this and other features and design elements of Castle Wolfenstein.

Berzerk casts the player as a humanoid trying to escape individual rooms filled with robots before the indestructible Evil Otto appears. Armed with only a laser gun, the humanoid must avoid being killed by a robot's touch, shot, or explosion, as well as contact with the electrified walls. With its clever and early use of speech synthesis (“The humanoid must not escape”), modified perspective, single-screen encounters, enemies interacting with each other and the environment, and the requirement to sometimes escape a room without dispatching all enemies, Berzerk is the undeniable progenitor of Castle Wolfenstein.⁵ However, while many games like Datamost's Thief (1981; Apple II, Panasonic JR-200U) were essentially shameless Berzerk clones, right down to mimicking Evil Otto's timed appearance that kept arcade players from dawdling, Castle Wolfenstein did something special with the base concepts, turning a pure action game into something much more thoughtful and slower paced.

Screenshot from the arcade version of Berzerk. The indestructible Evil Otto (the round smiley face) has come out to attack because the player has lingered too long in the room.

Castle Wolfenstein’s 1984 sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, released for the same platforms, kept most of the best play mechanics of the first game, while dramatically upping the in-game possibilities. As the escape specialist from the first game, the underground resistance movement has arranged to sneak you from a courtyard into Adolf Hitler's underground Berlin bunker with a gun, 10 bullets, 100 German Marks (money) and at least one pass to show the guards. Upon entry into the bunker, it's up to the player to find a briefcase containing a bomb, locate Hitler's private conference room, and plant the bomb. Once the briefcase is in place and the timer set, the hero must make it back to the courtyard before the explosion.

Box and manual back for Beyond Castle Wolfenstein.

Sneaking past the guards is a bit more complicated this time, and involves passes. When a guard demands a pass, the player will have to show the proper pass or be asked again. The player can either try again with a different pass or attempt to bribe the guard with money. Besides the standard patrolling guards, there are guards seated at desks. These guards can also be bribed this time for information.

A guard asks the player for the correct pass in Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. Shown to the left, the player has passes 1, 4 and 5.

As usual, shooting guards must be done as covertly as possible, though now alarms add additional challenge. Not only will a guard pursue you if he thinks something suspicious is going on, he will also attempt to set off an alarm, which alerts the whole bunker to your presence. The alarm can only be disabled by finding and using a toolkit.

In a further nod to stealth over brute force, the grenades from the previous game have been replaced with a dagger, which can be used to silently kill guards. The player's character also has the ability to drag dead bodies to a less conspicuous location within a room. With additional emphasis on uniformed disguise, there are also new commands for holstering a weapon, helping to further mitigate the guard's suspicions.

There are no chests in the bunker—only closets. Instead of an automatic timed search, the player must crack a three-digit code, listening closely for when each of the lock's tumblers is triggered. If an incorrect number in any of the three slots is entered, the player must try again. Closets contain the usual assortment of items, as well as the occasional first aid kit, allowing the character to tend to injuries, which have a noticeable effect on his ability to maneuver.

In just about every way, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein is a sequel done right. Gameplay is more stealth-based, ambitious, and challenging; even accidentally walking into objects causes only a slight pause this time around. It gives fans of the first game more of what they loved, but is a refreshingly distinct experience. It set an even higher bar for in-game interactivity.

In a very interesting design decision that actually works in making the gameplay notably different from the original, grenades have been replaced with a knife in Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, allowing for silent kills. Unfortunately for the player (gun drawn) in the screenshot, the alarm has already been set off from a failed gunfight in the prior room and he is severely wounded, making him an easy target for the oncoming guard.

Although there would be no other Wolfenstein games from either Warner or Muse, there were games from countless other sources that took some of the elements of the original two games much further. These include Impossible Mission (Epyx, 1984; Commodore 64, Nintendo DS, Sega Master System, and others), a side-perspective action adventure that casts the player as an athletic, acrobatic, and unarmed secret agent who needs to search through danger-filled rooms for puzzle pieces to ultimately bring down the diabolical Professor Elvin Atombender;⁶ D/Generation (Mindscape, 1991; Atari ST, Commodore Amiga CD32, and others), where, from an isometric perspective, the player is tasked with getting through puzzle-heavy booby-trapped rooms in a high rise building; and Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure (Activision, 1994; PC, Sony PlayStation),⁷ which is played from a 3D isometric perspective, with the player putting the main character into one of four different modes of behavior, including “Discreet,” which includes quietly tip-toeing and the ability to hide.

Of course the most famous of these latter-day Wolfenstein- inspired games is the aforementioned Metal Gear, marking the first appearance of “Solid Snake,” a now legendary videogame character used in countless games right up to 2008’s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Konami; Sony PlayStation 3). Each successive game in the series typically ramped up the original Metal Gear’s complexity and ambition levels and built further on the previous entry, right through its initial overhaul from a slanted overhead 2D perspective to state-of-the-art third-person 3D.

Metal Gear casts the player as special forces operative Solid Snake, who must infiltrate a fortified compound to ultimately destroy the titular machine, a bipedal walking tank capable of launching nuclear missiles from anywhere in the world. The player must carefully avoid visual contact and direct confrontation with patrolling guards. If Solid Snake is spotted, he must hide in a manner specific to the type of alert the guards are on. Initially unarmed, Solid Snake eventually becomes well equipped with a wide range of weaponry, which can also be used to clear obstacles. Punching guards can sometimes yield rations or ammunition, and, much like in Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, specific key cards are sometimes needed to gain access to additional areas.

In what amounted to nothing less than a lovingly crafted and well-executed tribute to Castle Wolfenstein, id Software released Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 (3DO, Apple Macintosh, PC, and others).⁸ Though it's discussed in Chapter 6, “Doom (1993): The First Person Shooter Takes Control,” for its influence on Doom, it's important to note here that Wolfenstein 3D took all of the iconic elements from Castle Wolfenstein and its sequel, like the castle setting, the guards, and the clever use of speech synthesis, and turned it all into a silky-smooth and approachable single-player first-person shooter. Though there is some possibility for sneaking up on guards, the majority of stealth and slower-paced elements were removed in lieu of quick action, which favored the game engine and interface. Starting with 2001’s Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Xbox, PC, and others), Wolfenstein 3D has received a semiregular stream of sequels, though the large jump in technology and player expectations have made them only marginally recognizable to fans of the original.

Castle Wolfenstein’s legacy can't be overestimated, particularly in regard to its integration of basic stealth elements into its gamplay. Today, of course, there are countless games with some type of stealth-based elements in them, ranging from games that make stealth an integral part of their gameplay, like the critically acclaimed series-spawning action adventures, Thief: The Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios, 1998; PC), Hitman: Codename47 (Eidos, 2000; PC), and Beyond Good and Evil (Ubisoft, 2003; Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, PC, Sony PlayStation 2), to games that include them as a small part of their total game-play scope, like first-person shooter The Operative: No One Lives Forever (Fox Interactive, 2000; PC, Sony PlayStation 2), action adventure The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo, 2002; Nintendo GameCube), and the licensed Kung Fu Panda (2008, Activision; PC, Sony PlayStation 3, and others). It is a testament to Warner's genius that his brilliant gameplay designs, introduced so early in videogame history, are still inspiring developers and thrilling gamers to this day.

Back of the box for the Atari Jaguar version of Wolfenstein 3D, a game that focused more on action and aspects of the Nazi regime's infamous human experiments than its progenitors.

Beyond id's own contributions to the Wolfenstein legacy, fans of the series have also kept the torch burning, such as with 2004’s homebrew cartridge Wolfenstein VCS for the Atari 2600 Video Computer System, box back shown, and its enhanced sequel, Wolfenstein VCS: The Next Mission (2006). Both of the homebrew games are based on code from the Atari 2600 version of Exidy's 1981 arcade game, Venture (Coleco, 1982), a fantasy-themed action adventure that shares similarities with both Berzerk and Castle Wolfenstein.

¹See bonus chapter, “Robotron: 2084 (1982): Running Away While Defending Humanoids,” for games that offer smooth independent, simultaneous movement and aiming.

²When using two joysticks on the Atari 8-bit version, the first joystick's fire button throws grenades, and the second fires the gun.

³The companion of Adolf Hitler. With the war obviously lost, she committed suicide alongside the German Fuhrer roughly 24 hours after their marriage.

⁴Though the Crusader series had other similarities to Castle Wolfenstein and its sequel, like the ability to loot intact dead bodies, working alarms, and enemies who made use of the environment, Origin's game was heavily biased toward frantic weapons-based combat and over-the-top deaths.

⁵Though Berzerk's direct sequel, Frenzy (1982; Arcade, Coleco ColecoVision, Sinclair ZX Spectrum), featured slightly more sophisticated play elements and shootable walls, it's unlikely that Castle Wolfenstein had much, if any, influence on its development.

⁶Like Castle Wolfenstein before it, Impossible Mission was famous for its speech synthesis, which included the game opening, “Another visitor. Stay awhile … stay forever!”

⁷Released as Little Big Adventure through Electronic Arts in Europe, this underrated title was Frederick Raynal's next game after Alone in the Dark, which is discussed in Chapter 1, “Alone in the Dark (1992): The Polygons of Fear.”

⁸Wolfenstein 3D is the reason some refer to the original Castle Wolfenstein as “Wolfenstein 2D” today.