February is here, and in the month of love Microsoft wants players to start getting romantic with their consoles as the first batch of new games for the service have been announced: Final Fantasy XV and Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

After a pair of games starring BJ Blazcowicz earning a reputation amongst history’s jack-booted thugs as “Terror Billy”, it’s time for a passing of the torch. Wolfenstein: Youngblood looks set to take the more sombre and introspective tone of the previous games and blow them sky-high with a pair of siblings who happen to have inherited their dad’s talent for death and mayhem. An approach that has resulted in MachineGames taking a more open-ended approach to leverage the co-op gameplay that drives this sequel forward.

Wolfenstein and the Nazi-killing escapades of B.J Blazkowicz have never been better thanks to MachineGames. Both The New Order and The New Colossus have been tight shooter romps with a delicate mix of old and new; Blending stealth gameplay with punchy first-person shooting, wrapped up by strong writing and captivating characters. But Youngblood isn’t about the past. Instead, it’s forging …

BJ’s daughters Jess and Soph happen to have inherited a talent for killing Nazis, they’re on a mission to free Europe from the tyranny of the Axis forces and they’re looking to have a damn good time while doing it. It’s a massive departure from the more sombre attitude shown in previous Wolfenstein games, as this third chapter in the revived series focuses on co-op gameplay, wild action and some sweet synth music tracks straight out of the 1980s.

Machinegames’ Wolfenstein alternate history reboots have given us some of this generations finest straight up shooters. Both The New Order and The New Colossus were exemplary FPs games, using new technology couple with old-school design to make killing nazis as cathartic as it could possible be. In July’s Wolfenstein: Youngblood, BJ Blazkowicz passes the torch to his twin daughters, delivering a 1980’s co-op shooter experience that’s a change of pace for the series.

2017’s Wolfenstein: The New Colossus was a fab return for BJ Blazkowicz with some neat twists of its own, keeping the chunky gunplay intact and giving players a surprisingly tender hero caught in an unwinnable war. It’s a couple of years later, BJ’s family has grown and he’s ready to pass on the torch to the next generation of resistance fighters. A battle that will continue in Wolfenstein: Youngblood on July 26.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus may be a game of compromises on the Nintendo Switch, but the end result is a port which manages to not only capture the complete content of the Nazi-killing game but also the very essence of that experience.

In their bid to support any and every hardware platform out there, Bethesda have revealed two new VR titles in the worlds of both Wolfenstein and Prey.