It's hard to believe that it's almost been a decade since players took control of the big bad wolf, but 2014 saw the release of the season finale of Telltale's "The Wolf Among Us." Since then, fans have been clamoring for a sequel. With Telltale's bankruptcy and subsequent closure, it seemed as if that sequel would never return, but like the eponymous sheriff, "The Wolf Among Us 2" was just too hard to kill that easily. A new trailer for the game has just been unveiled at The 2022 Game Awards.
The Big Bad Wolf
For the uninitiated, "The Wolf Among Us" was a graphic adventure where players took on the role of Sheriff Bigby Wolf, formerly the Big Bad Wolf, who's in charge of protecting the fairy tale citizens in a hidden part of New York known as Fabletown.
When a Fable named Faith is found murdered on the doorstep of the Woodlands apartment complex, Bigby is tasked with finding her killer.
Gameplay consisted of walking around to interact with objects and people and engaging in dialogue choices. Sometimes, players would be tasked with interrogating suspects and catching the contradictions in their stories. Other times, they'd be given a crime scene and asked to piece together what happened based on the clues littered throughout the environment.
The return to Fabletown
"The Wolf Among Us" managed to prove that Telltale's "The Walking Dead" was no fluke by presenting players with a unique blending of film noir mystery and fairy tales. In spite of the critical and commercial success, a follow up was put on hold to make way for several other multimedia projects such as game adaptions of "Game of Thrones," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and even "Minecraft."
Unfortunately, it didn't take too long for people to see the strings behind Telltale's formula and grow fatigued from their same-y adventures that gave lofty promises of narrative choice, but always ended the in the same place with only minor variations depending on player input.
Eventually, Telltale would go bankrupt, causing many who joined the studio to be laid off and follow ups such as "Batman," "Game of Thrones," and even "The Wolf Among Us" to get cancelled. Before Telltale shuttered, Skybound managed to provide enough funding to finish the final season of "The Walking Dead."
After Telltale's closure, many of the former staff went on to form new studios such as Skunkape games which released remasters of the first two "Sam & Max" Telltale games.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, this new division, called Adhoc Studio, is comprised of many staff members involved with the first "Wolf Among Us," including series writer Pierre Shorette.
Details of the upcoming game are scarce, but the art style, atmosphere and characters that defined the first game feel entirely intact based on what little has been shown.
Both trailers comprise of in-engine cinematics and provide only hints as to what Bigby's latest case will entail. What is known is that the game will be running on Unreal Engine instead of Telltale's traditional in-house tool and is slated for a 2023 release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.
