Beyond Castle Wolfenstein

Beyond Castle Wolfenstein is the 1984 sequel to Castle Wolfenstein, made by Muse Software for the Apple II, C64, Atari 8-bit and DOS. Like its predecessor, it mixes stealth, action and adventure.

Gameplay

You infiltrate a secret Berlin bunker where Hitler is meeting his senior staff. You have to find a bomb hidden in the bunker and plant it outside his meeting room, a scenario similar to the real 20 July plot.

• Stealth: Bluff past guards with passes, or bribe them.
• Weapons: Use a pistol and a dagger to silence guards quietly.
• Alarms: Shooting draws attention and raises the alarm.
• Searching: Search closets and bodies for items.
• Levels: Work through the floors of the bunker.

It added more stealth options than the first game, making it one of the earliest stealth games. The graphics are basic, but the tension of moving through guarded rooms still works.

Its ideas, and the Wolfenstein name, lived on in id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D.

Verdict

Beyond Castle Wolfenstein is an important early stealth game. It’s crude by modern standards, but its tension and ideas were well ahead of their time.