In good news for those saddened by their inability to stamp on Hitler's head in Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Machine Games are once again making noises about developing a new Wolfenstein game.

Speaking during a a No-Clip documentary about the previous Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, studio head Jerk Gustafsson commented briefly that they still have an outline for a sequel that completes the story of B.J. Blazkowicz.

"That journey for B.J., even during those first weeks at id, when we mapped out New Order, we still had the plan for at least [B.J.], what would happen in the second one and what would happen in the third one," the developer observed. "I think that's important to say, because - at least I hope - we're not done with Wolfenstein yet. We have a story to tell."

I find the prospect of another major Wolfenstein game from MachineGames... interesting (there have also been several standalone spin-offs - The Old Blood, Youngblood and Cyperpilot, the latter two developed in partnership with Arkane Lyon). Few big budget shooters have courted the thunder of Topicality quite like New Colossus, an alternate-history fable set in a United States that has been conquered by the Nazis.

Back in 2017, I offered some rather grandiose and theory-drenched Opinions about how New Colossus "takes the white dudebro hero apart", following the election of Donald Trump. Hunter Pauli wrote a great rebuttal, commenting that "for a series built around the deconstruction of Aryan bodies, it's taken a long time for players to take the hint that Wolfenstein's ubermensch William Blazkowicz is Jewish."

I don't know about you, but 2017 feels like a billion years ago to me. Since then, Trump has won a second term and initiated a bunch of crackpot and draconian measures against migrants and marginalised people. Russia have invaded Ukraine in what has become the largest armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War. Israel are shelling and starving hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza with the US government's backing - an invasion that has contributed to a crisis of legitimacy in the USA and UK, where elites characterise support for Palestinians as terrorism.

I do not envy any Wolfenstein writer trying to make something approximating a mainstream commercial first-person shooter that alludes to any of this. But then again, there is no such thing as "a simpler time".

In terms of the business of games development, the ground has also shifted considerably beneath MachineGames' feet. They're now owned by Microsoft, via the latter's purchase of ZeniMax Media. Microsoft, of course, are on something of a cost-cutting spree. As reported by Tweaktown, MachineGames made a small profit in 2024, but that means nothing without understanding how it fits into the parent company's wider fortunes. MachineGames have cancelled at least one unannounced game between 2022 and 2024.

Microsoft, meanwhile, stand accused of abetting the genocide in Gaza while quelling internal criticism of their business links to Israel. A number of ZeniMax staff have signed an open letter calling for Microsoft to divest from the Israeli armed forces.