Wolfenstein has always been an important name in video games, but it wasn’t until Bethesda rebooted the franchise in 2015 that it truly reached is decades-in-the-making potential. Turning the original mindless Nazi-slaughtering shooter into a powerful story-driven experience, full of interesting characters and visceral, emotionally grabbing elements, Bethesda turned the original generic “Doom guy” of the first game into a real protagonist in William Joseph “BJ” Blaskowicz.
Surprisingly, for a guy who has literally been around since the beginning of home gaming, William hasn’t really had a proper action figure, so Bethesda made him one as part of The New Colossus deluxe set.
Done in a very cool retro-style, “Terror Billy” comes in a large sleeved box. The slip cover is just an enlarged game box, but inside is a weathered homage to 1960s GI Joe toy boxes. Billy here serves as the main antagonist for the fictional “Elite Hans” line, another homage, if terrifying in concept, to the Joes. In a world where the Nazis took over the world, G.I. Joe is now some kind of TV show and toy line glorifying the heroic Hans and his elite stormtroopers as they seek to vanquish the last of the American terrorists. And if somebody out there is furiously typing some witty political commentary on how this relates to today — Save it. I won’t read it.
Anyway, the box feels pretty legit, and definitely carries over the style of its time. There’s cool cross-sell images, little Bios, and the whole deal.
Inside, you get a figure slightly larger than 12 inches, done with really top notch clothing. The base body is perhaps intentionally designed to elicit the same feel as the old Joes, so nothing revolutionary or “Hot Toys” feeling, but the likeness is decent, and, again, it would look awesome next to some classic Joes. I think there’s still some in storage, but I wasn’t able to find them today, so Medicom Batman will have to fill in.
Billy comes with an extra bomber jacket (which is super nicely done), and a load of in-game weapons, some carried over from the first game, as I would expect, and some interesting new mods that I’m looking forward to seeing once I start the game. The detailing on these weapons is really top-notch, and make an interesting contrast to the cleaner, simpler lines of the figure’s sculpt. Oh, and the steelbook copy of the game. I suppose that’s a good accessory.
This is essentially just a novelty piece, but the attention to detail and overall effort put into making this accessory for the game warranted a look of its own, I thought. I preordered mine for about $95, making it really only about 20 bucks more than the regular game release, which ain’t bad at all. So if you’re in for the game, and have a little extra to throw at it, I would say why not.
