Highlights
- Location plays a significant role in games, and Germany has proven to be a fascinating setting, especially for World War 2-based games.
- The Saboteur , Battlefield 1942 , and The Operative: No One Lives Forever are noteworthy games that showcase Germany as a memorable and immersive location.
- Games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor , which are set during World War 2 and feature Germany prominently, have had a significant impact on the FPS genre and have started major gaming trends.
Location can be hugely important in games, particularly in modern games. Originally, settings could be as unexplained as “a fantasy world” or “medieval times” in older games, when there was often nothing more needed from the setting than the backdrop for side-scrolling action. This has changed a great deal over the years, and world-building is now as much a part of major game releases as it is TV shows and movies.
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Germany is a country with a lot of history behind it, and it makes for a fascinating setting for games. In particular, a number of games based around World War 2 have set themselves in German territory, but plenty of other games have also found themselves journeying to that part of Europe over the years, making it a great and memorable location in many ways for gamers.
7 The Saboteur
Metascore: 73
The Saboteur
- Released
- December 8, 2009
- Developer(s)
- Pandemic Studios
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure , Open-World
An unusual action title released in 2009, The Saboteur is only partly set in Germany, although players do get to explore the nation's countryside. However, the story mostly takes place in Nazi-occupied France during World War 2.
A fascinating game that allows players not only to engage in the primary missions of the game but also liberate individual areas of the open-world map by weakening Nazi presence there, The Saboteur was a fantastic one-off that deserves to be revisited. It also had one of the most bizarre pieces of DLC ever seen in a video game.
6 Wolfenstein: The New Order
Metascore: 81
The Wolfenstein franchise includes a few games that take place partly or entirely inside Germany, including some of the very best games in the franchise, but none give the player the chance to see so much of the alternate reality Germany as The New Order does.
Credited by many as having revitalized the franchise, The New Order is a fantastic game that impressed on many levels. The design of this version of Germany, including a number of different locations in Berlin and seeing parts of the German countryside, this bleak version of history didn’t do much to conceive of the beauties of Germany.
5 Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Metascore: 85
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 4 , Nintendo Switch , Android , Xbox One , Microsoft Windows , macOS
- Released
- September 8, 2010
- Developer(s)
- Frictional Games
One of the few games set in Germany prior to the events of World War 2, Amnesia: The Dark Descent kicked off a fantastic survival horror franchise with a dark and terrifying game set entirely within Castle Brennenburg in Prussia, taking place in 1839.
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The Dark Descent doesn’t make much use of the German setting, preferring to use the placement as an extra piece of decoration to make the feeling of a medieval castle all the more terrifying. However, it does include Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, a German occult writer from the Renaissance, as a character in a fictionalized form, drawing on German history to add to the environment and setting.
4 Battlefield 1942
Metascore: 89
The Battlefield series is another one that is constantly set during and around major conflicts. This includes Battlefield 1942, which was one of the best-regarded games in the history of the franchise and which utilized World War 2 as the setting for the many battles players could take part in.
The game uses different locations, but one of the most major ones is Germany itself. While many other games have followed in the Battlefield franchise, the settings and storylines used in Battlefield 1942 have proven difficult to surpass. The World War 2 time period has proven to be one of the most easily adapted into video games, particularly for FPS games.
3 The Operative: No One Lives Forever
Metascore: 91
One of the most stylish games to release for the PlayStation 2, No One Lives Forever, was a story-driven FPS game with a female protagonist. The game was set across Europe during the 1960s, focusing on the Cold War, and proved to be one of the best Monolith games ever made.
Unsurprisingly, as with any media set during the Cold War, this spy thriller used Germany as a pivotal part of the setting. Despite much Cold War media being bland and dry, making Germany in this period seem depressing, No One Lives Forever used it as a great setting in a fun game that used similarly stylish 60s nostalgia as franchises like Austin Powers.
2 Call of Duty
Metascore: 91
It is crazy that, out of all the Call of Duty games that have taken place during World War 2 and been at least partially set in Germany, the original is still the highest rated out of the lot by many review sites. Call of Duty was responsible upon initial release for helping redesign the first-person shooter, even if it isn't as beloved today as other entries in the franchise.
Focusing on three different campaigns, from the perspective of American, British, and Russian soldiers, respectively, all three parts focus on the European side of World War 2, meaning that France and Germany are the most common locations seen throughout the game. Call of Duty helped start a huge FPS trend for other franchises in the mainstream, though other games had already proven the formula could work.
1 Medal of Honor
Metascore: 92
Credited with starting the trend of World War 2 being used in video games, Medal of Honor was released in 1999 as a huge project, backed and conceived by Steven Spielberg. Inspiring many other franchises, including Call of Duty, Medal of Honor was a fantastic game that focused on smaller efforts during the war.
Taking place mostly late in the war, Medal of Honor sent players on OSS missions to steal back art pieces, disrupt Nazi war efforts, and other tasks less focused on the overall war and more on being a single piece of a larger puzzle. Medal of Honor kick-started a franchise of its own while simultaneously kick-starting one of the biggest video gaming trends ever seen, despite later being overtaken by Call of Duty.
