Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was released 19 years ago, and is one of the greatest multiplayer shooters ever to appear on the PC. Sadly, some younger readers may never have had the pleasure of playing it, as it had never been released on Steam. Until today!
Note that the game has been available elsewhere this whole time—developers Splash Damage host it on their site and even made a guide showing you how to play it in modern times—but there’s something about a Steam release, with all the convenience and networking and buzz that comes along with it, that makes this a bit more exciting.
If you’ve never played it, this game was/is incredible, which is a big reason why people are still caring about this release almost 20 years later. Set in World War Two, and pitting an American side against the Germans, it allows for up to 32 players (16v16), who can then break down in smaller squads of four for better communication.
The comms were great, the classes were nice and balanced, but the real star of this game were its maps. There was a wonderful flow to them, with objectives needing to be completed before everyone moved onto a new set of things to attack/defend, and Seawall Battery (above) wouldn’t just be in my Top 5 Multiplayer Maps Of All Time list, it would be very close to the top.
As for why the game hadn’t been on Steam already, who knows! You could speculate that its absence was down to the fact that Zenimax had no interest in publishing and maintaining an ancient, free-to-play game on the platform. Now that Zenimax, aka Bethesda are playing nice with Steam and releasing all their old games on the service, however, Enemy Territory has popped up as well.
