Wolfenstein: youngblood review

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is the latest title in the series that came from Machine Games and Arkane Studios and was distributed by Bethesda Softwork about 6 months ago. Notorious were the community's criticism of this spin-off from the prestigious Wolfenstein for having been developed quite hastily with the aim of innovating mechanics such as the introduction of online cooperative mode and the added RPG touches.

But what interests us most about this Youngblood is the recent update of its idTech 6 graphics engine with the incorporation of ray tracing and rendering using DLSS. Two elements that always come hand in hand in the Nvidia GPUs to at least exploit its main strength, the setting.

Index of contents

Wolfenstein: Youngblood fun, frantic, but shallow in almost everything

Before focusing on the technical section and the best graphics it incorporates, it is worth putting ourselves in a position and telling the bases on which this last IP is based. It is a game developed by Machine Games, author of previous Wolfenstein and titles like Quake, Arkane Studios, authors of true works of art like Dishonored or Bioshock 2, and in turn distributed by Bethesda Softwork creator of Fallout or The Elder Scroll.

Of course, with these premises, what could possibly go wrong? There is the kit of the question, because we come from renowned studios that games that have marked an era and you cannot always keep the bar. Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a game that undoubtedly came out a bit hasty as did Fallout 76, and mainly focused on its online cooperative action. Come on, what has been a second Fallout 76 with almost the same failures.

Focused on the cooperative and with RPG elements, with little narrative

It can be considered as a continuation or spin-off of the previous Wolfenstein in which we took control of Jessie and Zofia Blazkowicz, daughters of the protagonist of the other titles, BJ Blazkowicz. In this case our tasks will basically be to kill Nazis in a France taken over by them in 1980, and search for our missing father. An action that will be carried out in a fairly horizontal semi-open mapping, but with a brutal setting, its main strength.

This can be done by controlling one of the two twin sisters in a solo campaign with the other as an NPC character, or much better cooperatively with a partner, being the true purpose of the game. In fact, the distributor makes the Buddy Pass system available to us so that our partner can play with us without having purchased the game. Interesting option to buy the game halfway. One of the most negative aspects for many, is that the control points are very separated from each other, and if we die we will almost have to start the entire mission again, which is a real nuisance.

That said, the advancement of the game is done through missions, the objective of which is to always charge us with a entrenched Nazi boss, a fortress full of faithful soldiers. Always the same and always in the same scenarios, so we will have to go over and over our environment full of enemies that will reappear to complicate our lives. Scenarios with brutal setting and graphic detail, full of collectibles, weapons and the currency of the game.

And of course, being an online cooperative has wanted to give it that touch of character evolution in the form of levels, instead of maintaining the FPS essence of the previous solo titles. So we can improve the character, its weapons and the outfit with which we move. Apart from this, we see a very shallow story, not very submersible in the lore of the video game and carried out by two young and promising assassins trained since childhood but who at 18 are still quite childish.

Technical section: analysis, performance and Ray Tracing

Put in a situation, we are going to focus on what interests us the most, which is the technical section of the game, its graphics engine and the renovation it has undergone by integrating real-time ray tracing and DLSS.

For this we will need to update the game to its latest available version and the drivers for our Nvidia card at 441.66 or later. Obviously it will only be available on the cards of the green giant, since AMD does not have this technology in its Radeon RX with Navi architecture. To this, the Nvidia Higlights function has also been added to record and share our gameplay in the most simple and direct way possible, making it compatible with programs such as OBS.

Test equipment and game requirements

All the tests we have carried out and capturing images of the game have been cabled with our test bench, which consists of the following components:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i9-9900K
Base plate:	Asus Maximus XI Formula
Memory:	T-Force Vulkan 3200 MHz
Heatsink	Corsair H100i Platinum SE
HDD	ADATA SU750
Graphic card	Gigabyte RTX 2080 Super
Power supply	Cooler Master V850 Gold

It is certainly quite top hardware that not everyone has, but it is about seeing in the best possible way if there really is an evolution and an appreciable difference. Wolfenstein: Youngblood has the following recommended and minimum hardware requirements.

Minimum requirements

• OS: Windows 7 x64 or higher Processor: AMD FX-8350, Ryzen 5 1400 or higher, Intel Core i5-3570 or higher RAM: 8 GB GPU: Nvidia GTX 770 with 4 GB or higher Hard drive: 40 GB of space

Recommended requirements

• OS: Windows 7 x64 or higher Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1600X, Intel Core i7-4770 RAM: 16 GB GPU: GTX 1060 with 6 GB (without RTX) or Nvidia RTX 2060 (with RTX) Hard disk: 40 GB of space Internet connection

We should know that current drivers allow Nvidia graphics cards of Pascal and GTX Turing architectures to do Ray Tracing, but it is always recommended to use a GPU specially designed for this, such as the RTX 2060 or higher models.

Powerful graphics engine, but without an advance over previous titles

We already have the hardware, now it's time to see the technical section of the Wolfenstein: Youngblood, which has been developed using the id Tech 6 graphics engine that is also used in the previous titles and in Doom 2016. Currently this will be replaced by id Tech 7, which debuts the new Doom Eternal in March 2020.

Companion Shadow Detail

It is a graphics engine that in Wolfenstein works on the Vulkan API, one of the fastest in terms of FPS rates that we have today and that will also ensure good performance on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. This engine supports effects such as motion blur, depth of field, shadow mapping, HDR, FXAA, Anti-Aliasing and now also Real-time Ray Tracing and rendering by DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling).

In fact, there is no graphic evolution regarding Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, with very similar object textures, great detail and resolution, and a quite similar setting in the treatment of shadows and characters. In addition, we cannot avoid seeing textures that are also very similar to those of Doom, and some NPCs with similar movements and behavior.

It is an engine that developers have very well taken the measure. Already from the first versions of the game it enjoyed great stability in FPS and no stuttering problems, which we do see for example in Doom, nor tearing or tearing. Being FreeSync and G-Sync compatible from the start we will not have this type of problem with a decent card.

In successive updates, an improvement in loading times between mapping areas has been noted, especially if we have SSD drives, the times will be just a few seconds. In fact we leave a screenshot for you to see that the shadow of the character that accompanies us when we shine the flashlight leaves a lot to be desired

Incorporation of Ray Tracing and DLSS

In principle with our RTX 2080 Super we are going to be more than enough in terms of graphic power. How far will it be able to go?

Main options menu

Exploring the graphics customization options, we will see more or less the same as the previous titles except for the great novelty of the two elements incorporated in the update, Wolfenstein: Youngblood with Ray Tracing and DLSS.

In the main section we will not be able to touch too many options, only aspect of the image and resolution. Here we already see that Antialiasing is disabled by DLSS, since they are equivalent or rather reverse options. The function of DLSS is to render the image at a lower resolution than that shown on the screen to speed up performance without losing too much quality.

We get into the advanced section, which is where we have the options in detail, which will be pre-configured based on the video quality we have in the previous menu. Here inside we will attend especially to the option " ray traced reflections (RT) " and " DLSS " which also gives us the option to configure them in performance, balanced or quality, from more to less FPS. Later we will have other related and inactive options such as resolution scaling or Adaptive Shading by Nvidia.

Keep in mind that if we want to enable or disable ray tracing we will have to restart the game for the changes to take effect.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood with Ray Tracing, can you see the improvement?

To the impressive graphic quality that we already have as a base and to those scenarios so saturated with detail, we now add ray tracing. In this case, this will affect everything that has to do with the reflection and incidence of light on objects and on the character.

In the screenshots that we provide, we try to see the difference in visual quality with and without ray tracing. Captures that have been carried out at 2K and 4K at the top of graphics, with and without DLSS to see its influence.

When we have the option activated, we effectively see a more volumetric light, that is, a greater incidence of light on objects, environment and light sources somewhat more powerful than without the option. In addition, the bokeh effect is made with a better quality and more realistic backgrounds with more detail.

Outdoors we appreciate a higher incidence when there is water and puddles on the ground, and when there are crystals and surfaces with high light reflection. In them we see a greater definition of what is reflected, and greater realism in what is shown, coinciding with the position and location of the beam so to speak. And indoors perhaps it is where the difference is most marked, since there are more surfaces and objects where to activate those reflections, for example, in the first mission-tutorial in the zeppelin.

We do not see improvements in the characters or matte surfaces such as concrete or walls, although sometimes in the weapon and in the character. Something consistent but perhaps not as well carried out as in other games like Control or Metro Exodus.

The influence of DLSS and FPS rate

If something developers have done well it is the implementation of DLSS, and here we do notice the difference in performance and not in the image, just what is intended. The table below records the FPS rates in the “Ribera” benchmark in the different modes and with maximum graphic quality.

FPS rate in the different DLSS + RT modes

Long we see that the best performance is obtained with RT OFF and DLSS ON, especially in 2K and 4K with up to 32 FPS difference in the base configuration. And best of all, the influence on visual quality is very low, doing a great job, with well-defined textures and surfaces without that annoying grainy effect that appeared in Control for example.

The best combination we think is RT + DLSS ON and in performance mode, since the rates are similar to having everything disabled. Thus we will win in a cooperative and competitive way. The worst performance is obtained with RT ON and DLSS OFF as normal and with DLSS in quality mode. In case of having powerful hardware we can afford it, but if not, the performance will be quite influenced.

Something that has also been improved over previous titles like DOOM is that the FPS limit has been increased to take advantage of high-frequency monitors.

Wolfenstein Conclusions: Youngblood with Ray Tracing

It has taken 6 months to arrive, but at least it has, and id Tech can already say that it offers support for hardware ray tracing. The implementation has been carried out in a way that we believe is very solvent, especially that of DLSS, which offers a significant improvement in FPS rates compared to Antialiasing, and the graphic quality is hardly affected.

On the other hand, the ray tracing acquires more brightness in interior glazed areas and outdoors with puddles of water mainly. They are changes that in users who are not very observant or with low graphic quality can go unnoticed, but the improvement in realism is evident.

However, we also think that other games like Control with Northlight, Battlefield 5 with Frostbite or COD Modern Warfare's novel IW Engine make it a little better and more eye-catching.

There were high expectations for DOOM Eternal and the new id Tech 7, and in the statement by its developers that it was going to be the best ray tracing ever. This in the end seems to be smoke, as sources indicate that it will come out initially without this ability, which we hope will be implemented in successive patches for the good of the developers and the players.

In short, it is a good step forward, and we hope that many more games and engines will implement this function from the beginning, the new generation of games, consoles and graphics cards is on the decline and we expect great improvements.