| INFO | |
|---|---|
| Base game | Return to Castle Wolfenstein |
| Release date | 2021-12-23 |
One of those mods with a long and tortuous development process, maybe even a record holder given that news about it began surfacing in 2002, but it wasn't until 2021 that it was finally released, surviving many cancellation threats. The Victors expands RTCW with a new campaign focused on a Soviet agent who, after evading capture, must undertake a series of missions behind enemy territory, deep in occupied Ukraine.
These assignments can be summarized with "sabotage and resistance" and drink heavily from all the tropes you can think of. The new maps are intricate, and some fall on the larger side, so one afternoon won't be enough to see the end credits here. You snatch intel, plant explosives, break things and assassinate high-ranking officers. It's as fun as it sounds. Discretion is not actually a requirement in most of the levels despite what you might have been led to believe.
The downsides: the "story" is paper thin and in the end it doesn't matter at all, you just wander around places blowing stuff up. There's no teamwork, you'll be alone most of your playthrough save for the occasional and brief appearance of other partisans. And there are some bugs (that may or may not be related to the use of RealRTCW, an overhaul mod for the base game), so I suggest you save often to prevent headaches.
But the worst is the sometimes esoteric solutions to the levels. You'll be given a list of objectives and little or no info, and some of them won't be as straightforward as you'd like. In fact, you may roam certain areas clueless as to what to do or where to go next. You'll mash the "use" key trying to locate any critical mission item or hidden door that may have escaped your sight, and unload your weapons onto anything that may look breakable. Usually, you'll be able to progress on your own, but I have to admit I had to check a walkthrough a couple of times. I'm sure Call of Duty and its clones have spoiled us, but there's a middle ground between this and that.
Regardless of these downsides, it's evident that this mod has been created with certain taste, and it offers several hours of entertainment while killing half of the Wehrmacht all on your own. It's worth a try.
Playing
The mod was sadly taken down from the net due to some controversy related to the use of assets from another mod, Forgotten Hope 2. But it can still be found out there.
- Google Drive (thanks to ModDB user Mpeckham13).