Bethesda: "Shooting Nazis never gets old"

The reason the Wolfenstein series has such enduring appeal is because killing Nazis is a timeless activity, Bethesda marketing executive Pete Hines explained in a new interview.

"Shooting Nazis never gets old," Hines told CVG.

The next entry in the acclaimed Wolfenstein series is Wolfenstein: The New Order, which was developed by MachineGames and launches this May for consoles and PC.

Hines explained that MachineGames has been able to take some of core ideas of the Wolfenstein franchise and then "reimagine" them in the vein of other genres developers enjoy working on. This all comes together to form unique experience, Hines said.

"They've taken elements of character and storytelling, different types of gameplay, exploration, player choice, some RPG stuff, and layered all that into the kind of games they've made," Hines said.

Elsewhere in the interview, Hines said developers at id Software--the studio that created the Wolfenstein series--have gotten a chance to playtest Wolfenstein: The New Order and provide feedback. "They like the new direction and how MachineGames has evolved it," Hines said.

Wolfenstein: The New Order does not feature a multiplayer mode, which isn't much of a surprise when you consider some of Bethesda's biggest games--Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Dishonored--are all singleplayer affairs. Hines said Bethesda wasn't willing to add multiplayer to The New Order unless it made sense for the game they were making.

"We've obviously had a lot of success doing singleplayer games, and as a result we may just have a different view, but we don't think adding a feature just for the feature's sake is the right approach," Hines said. "You spend a lot of time doing that and it's not free: you have to hire the people to do that, you have to spend all that time polishing, and that time could be spent continuously improving a singleplayer experience. That's always been our approach and I don't see that changing."

Wolfenstein: The New Order launches May 20 across Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC. For more, be sure to check out GameSpot's hands-on preview of the game from editor Maxwell McGee.