Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus might have proven gamers much more of Adolf Hitler than anticipated — till a fateful set of messages between developer MachineGames and writer Bethesda ensured the führer’s penis was stored out of view.
Talking to Noclip, MachineGames co-founder and artistic director Jens Matthies recalled working on the memorable The New Colossus scene the place Hitler casts a propaganda movie, and eager to shock gamers with “one thing they have not seen earlier than.”
The finish result’s an more and more chaotic Hitler who does find yourself urinating in the scene — though, maybe fortunately, gamers do not get to see every thing.
“We truly needed so as to add one other ingredient — we needed to truly present Hitler’s penis as effectively, when he was peeing,” MachineGames boss Jerk Gustafsson started. “However that was one thing that was somewhat bit an excessive amount of, so we determined to skip that one. However that entire scene when you may see his weak point, I feel, is essential, in mixture with the ruthlessness and the way vicious [the Nazis] are.”
“The idea round Hitler was that he was going to be extraordinarily bodily,” Matthies added, choosing up the story. “Like, the alternative of non secular, principally. If in case you have a Nazi enemy – or, in this case… the final word Nazi – how do you make one thing distinctive out of it? How do you make it attention-grabbing and one thing they have not seen earlier than?”
This resulted in the darkly comedian scene the place Hitler will get more and more irate, eats, vomits and has to urinate.
“I had this concept that… ‘Oh, possibly we simply see it,'” Matthies laughed. “Y’know? I used to be Slacking with Todd Vaughn, VP of Manufacturing at Bethesda on the time, and I used to be like: ‘Er, you suppose that might be an issue if we see Hitler’s penis?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, I do not advise doing that.’ I used to be like, ‘Ah, you are most likely proper, possibly that is an excessive amount of…’ All of us have to be saved from ourselves generally.”
No matter that call, or maybe due to it, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus landed as one other sturdy entry in the studio’s beloved shooter sequence — and hopefully not the final. As a part of the identical interview, MachineGames recommended its staff had been nonetheless eager for a 3rd entry to spherical off the trilogy, as they nonetheless had “story to inform”.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You’ll be able to attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social