At Gamescom this year, I got to check out The Wolf Among Us 2, the long-awaited sequel to one of Telltale’s best games, and, naturally, one of the best games of all time. It’s been a long 13 years since the first title came out, and a lot has happened between then and now, but, as the devs opened the conversation up, it’s only been six months in-universe.
“[It’s been] roughly six months. But yeah, it’s enough time that you can see how the events of the first game have shaped what’s going on now and how things have played out. But not so much time that you’re separated from that part of the experience. It’s a true sequel that follows the first game,” the devs said.
“All the events that played out are still fresh in [the characters’] memory.”
I immediately jumped at the opportunity to dig for answers about the first game’s ambiguous ending, which, despite community efforts, has never been resolved. I asked whether the “echoes” of the first game are still felt, which, depending on player choices, could have turned very, very violent by the end of the game.
But the devs didn’t want to reveal too much.
“In terms of how we’re reflecting your choices or not, we haven’t discussed how it may or may not impact your influence or story here. But given that it’s a direct sequel, and they’re the same characters, and some of them were there. Dot, dot, dot.”
In the hands-off preview, Bigby Wolf was investigating an apartment with Faye, a detective working a case to which Wolf was assigned. Faye is a mundy, meaning a regular human who isn’t at all aware of Fables or magic in New York. In one situation, Wolf can choose to reveal the world of magic to her or keep it a secret, which is a cool moment that explores the choice-and-consequence system of the game.
However, what my mind went to is: what is Faye’s role in the story? And thus I asked the devs whether or not she’s supposed to be a replacement for Snow White, who similarly accompanies Wolf on cases and keeps his beast at bay.
“Snow is also here,” the devs said. “So she’s going to be present in that role. But we cannot give too many details.”
One major divergence of The Wolf Among Us 2 from the original title is the new camera perspective. Compared to TWAU1, this game has a third-person perspective and controller, allowing the player to lead Wolf themselves instead of relying on fixed angles.
I then asked the devs to tell me whether this results in a major impact on level design, since the fixed camera angles turned the original game into a wave of corridors for the most part.
“So in Wolf 1 we had the cameras with more fixed, static, and generally isometric views. And you’re essentially walking around and exploring the stage set.”
“In terms of what we’re doing here, it’s allowing us to put the player more in Bigby’s shoes to walk around and explore the world. It’s allowing us to do a greater depth of immersion in terms of fulfilling that fantasy of the detective who’s investigating the crime scene.”
“It provides more opportunities for visual storytelling to kind of showcase the visuals. We don’t require a cinematic to cut in and show it. So there are a lot more subtleties in terms of how it needs to be filled in. It allows for more player agency; how do they want to consume the content? It’s not everything displayed in front of you.”
“It’s just, I’m going to click down the line if you need to look for it, find it, and discover the points that can impact it.”
The developers are making a point of being an evolution of the first game as well as a sequel, with 13 years having passed between the games. Gaming has changed by a significant margin since, and what’s acceptable and polished has shifted a lot. And so, the devs went in-depth about what they’re evolving beyond just the camera, and it turns out a lot of systems were subject to change.
“We have other systems as well from Wolf 1 that we’re kind of evolving. We’ll have our inventory system, kind of pushing that. [But] we’re not necessarily like, I have to manage my inventory because that’s not the type of game we’re doing at all.”
“And we are evolving our Book of Fables from Wolf 1, which was based on codex entries. So you would meet a character, you’d get a little word from them, and that was it. And we’re pushing this further now, where the codices are evolving over time and may be different based on my experience. So maybe it’s how it’s describing Snow’s story through the game, because in my choice, this is one way where what you’re seeing is slightly different because of how you interact with it.”
“So it’s a little bit more interactive in this sense, and it acts as our casebook as we’re investigating potentially different scenes, accumulating information, and allowing the player who likes that type of thing. It’s not required reading, but they’re able to kind of dig deeper in terms of the investigation and draw some conclusions.”
“Maybe it helps them figure out what has been solved.”
With all of these elements in mind, I asked whether the devs saw The Wolf Among Us 2 as more of an expansion to the original experience rather than being something entirely new and also wondered if the scale and scope of the story will thus be much larger and broader than it was in The Wolf Among Us 1.
And the devs told me it’s going to be within “the same Telltale time range in terms of hours of play.” The major difference here will be that TWAU2‘s episodes will all drop at the same time. It maintains the episodic structure but won’t be a weekly thing like it was in 2013, which could then have some impact on how the episodes and their stories unfold.
“You might spend a little bit more time in these moments because we’re kind of adding some puzzles, but at the same time it’s… For the type of player that you are, you can move through things at different paces.”
“[A player can be like:] I don’t like puzzles, therefore I’m going to skip forward, or I’m going to sit here and read every single piece of text. So within a scale of how you’re experiencing the game, you can kind of go at your own pace.”
“The game was originally made in 2013. We’re getting 14 years later by the time it comes out. It’s evolving because the games in general have changed. So we want to be honoring the original game. We’re getting forward so players are coming back and playing something familiar. But we’re making the changes where necessary.”
“And our new fans who are coming in aren’t going to be playing, like, this feels like a game from 10 years ago. So it’s got to evolve and be a little different. But not to the point where it feels like a different game altogether.”
The Wolf Among Us 2 is a direct sequel, set only six months away from the tales of the first title in-universe. Even so, the devs said that this can just as well be enjoyed as a standalone experience, with players allowed to start with the sequel if they so desire.
“Wolf 1 is not required to enjoy this game. It’s kind of standalone in that. We’re going to do as much as reading a book where we don’t rehash the whole first game type of thing. It’ll be introducing the characters, still setting the stage. But I think fans who are returning will also feel satisfaction of coming back. There are also specific elements that I think are really enjoyable to experience.”
“For the characters who are returning, we have the same voice cast for all of them returning. And that’s very exciting, at least to me, to be able to hear, oh, these are the same performers this many years apart reprising these characters and getting that aspect of it as well. From the team side and the development side, seeing that continuity is really enjoyable too.”
Now, finally, I got to exploring the idea of the sequel’s choice-and-consequence structure compared to the first game. In TWAU, it often felt like your choices echoed right on the spot, rather than coming back to bite you in the a** hours later like in RPGs or other choice-and-consequence games. I asked whether this is going to be the same in TWAU2, and the devs said they’re focusing more on reactivity rather than the traditional choice X-consequence Y structure.
“People say consequence. I prefer reactivity. There’s a bigger breadth of what that means. It can be the culmination of all my choices and this epic ending, but it can also be that minutia of, as I’m moving around the world, what are the NPCs saying because of my choices?”
“Even in what we saw right here, depending on the choices you make and how Faye’s interacting with you, is that immediacy? Is it a longer tale? We’re looking at that nuance, which is also sustainable for us to be able to support because there is a web, and half my job is, what is the web? How do we connect to making sure there are the payoffs to the things that we’re doing and avoiding false promises?”
And to my last question about whether we’ll have any answers about the first game’s ending, no matter how small, I was just told the legendary line: “Silence is a valid option.”
