Wolfenstein
Silas Warner, an American programmer and an employee of software company Muse Software, was a pioneer of early video game development, especially the stealth genre. He had access to computers in college, and when he worked for the IBM Mainframe architectures before joining Muse Software. The computer he used for game-development, P.L.A.T.O., was one of the firsts with multiple functioning terminals and an example of early computer networks. Warner developed, with P.L.A.T.O., a series of classic video games like his flight simulator and arcade shooter. Inspired by the arcade shooter video game "Berzerk" and the 1961 war film "Guns of Navarone", he developed "Castle Wolfenstein", a stealth-adventure video game in which the player controls an unnamed American prisoner of war as he steals German files containing secret war plans, while avoiding, disarming or at times killing hostile guards and trying to escape the fortified Nazi stronghold 'Castle Wolfenstein', set in World War II. The game was published in 1981 by Warner's company M.U.S.E. Inc. (Muse Software).
Wolfenstein: The New Order
The initial inspiration for "Wolfenstein: The New Order" came from previous games in the franchise. Senior gameplay designer Andreas Öjerfors said that it was the "super intense immersive combat" that defined the previous games, so MachineGames ensured that this elements was included in "The New Order". The development team refer to the game as a "first-person action adventure", naming this one of the unique defining points of the game. "It is the David vs Goliath theme," Öjerfors explained. "B.J. against a global empire of Nazis." Öjerfors also acknowledged that many aspects of the game's narrative are simply exaggerated elements of the Nazi Party: "The larger than life leaders, strange technology, strange experiments." The team viewed the game as a "dark-roasted blend of drama, mystery, humor." Creative director Jens Matthies explained that they "take perhaps the most iconic first-person shooter franchise in history and push it into a strange new world."
"Wolfenstein: The New Order" is the second game to use id Software's id Tech 5 engine, after "Rage" (2011). The game utilizes the engine to add a large amount of detail to the game world. The team often found it difficult to develop the game with 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, particularly on complex environments, but "we always made it work somehow", said Matthies. He has also said that the main advantages of the engine is the speed and the detailing, while its biggest disadvantage is dynamic lighting; "on the other hand the static light rendering is really awesome, so you have full radiosity and can do really spectacular-looking things using that," he added. Senior concept artist Axel Torvenius said that one of the main inspirations for the art design of the game was movies from the 1960s, calling out the James Bond movies. The design for the Nazis in the game was influenced by the aesthetics of the Nazis at the end of the Second World War; "it's blended with the style of the 1960s and the fashion ideals of how to express yourself visually," Öjerfors explained. This viewpoint is also influenced by the element of exaggeration, which is common throughout the game's design and has been acknowledged by the team as a development inspiration. Character models can be covered in up to a 256k texture; however, this is not used often in the game on individual characters, due to the difficulty of seeing it from a distance.