The Wolf Among Us 2 director reveals the sequel’s darker tone

Don’t believe me? I actually saw it in action during Summer Game Fest and can confirm that it’s real, albeit still a work in progress. Director Zak Garriss and design director Jess Campbell walked me through a live demo during the show that gave a taste of how the sequel builds on its predecessor. It’s still the same choice-driven mystery that fans loved in 2013, but with a much darker heart.

The demo I saw (I didn’t go hands-on, but I did get to pick the dialogue choices) dropped me right into the mystery. Bigby Wolf heads to Queens to get a lead on the case he’s chasing, one where the suspect is a fairy tale character, known as a Fable in-universe. There, he meets up with Faye and the two investigate an apartment with some magical qualities. Aside from some missing camera shots and some unfinished assets, the sequel’s illustrated art style looks great in motion. That’s thanks to the fact that Telltale Games rebooted the project three years ago.

“From the re-inception of Telltale, The Wolf Among Us 2 was the number-one priority,” Garriss told Polygon. “There was a certain point in the previous iteration where we realized we needed to reset the pipeline. The original game was made in a legacy toolset, not Unreal out of the box. It was a proprietary engine. It did not translate. About two years ago, I joined with a new creative direction. The current version of the story we’re telling now has been in development since then.”

The pivot didn’t change much about the game Telltale was making. The demo showed off the studio’s signature dialogue choice system. At one point, I had to choose whether to tell Faye that magic is real. I also had to choose whether to reveal that I had stolen a photo from a police station, and pick the tone I used to talk to Faye. Campbell said that all of these decisions would shape the story down the line. Yep, it’s a Telltale game, alright.

Image: Telltale Games/PM Studios

Aside from that, the demo emphasized the sequel’s investigation mechanics. The scene revolved around a central puzzle where Bigby had to find a book, slot it onto a shelf, then pull books in the right order to reveal a secret room behind the shelf. From there, he had to light a candle, slot it into a table, and spin some circles to recreate a rune in a photograph. (There will be an auto-solve option for puzzles if you just want to enjoy the story.) What’s new for the sequel is the over-the-shoulder, third-person camera during investigation sequences. That may sound like a small change, but it’s a big deal for Telltale, which historically relies on fixed camera angles to give its game a more directed feeling.

What’s also changed, at least from Telltale’s perspective, is the tone. Garris emphasized that The Wolf Among Us 2 is darker than its predecessor, really digging into Bigby’s psyche this time. He’s not the apex predator of Fabletown in the sequel; he’s being hunted by someone who is somehow able to trigger Bigby’s transformation into a wolf remotely.

“One of the central questions our story asks — and this is definitely the darkest version of Fabletown players will have seen yet — is: What is a monster?” Garriss said. “What is it like for Bigby to have the legacy he has and carry the responsibilities he does? The things we do to him, the things that the characters will do to him… we love what we’re working on, but some days we feel really bad for Bigby.”

Image: Telltale Games/PM Studios

There was a cat-and-mouse dynamic in the demo I saw. Faye and Bigby found themselves locked in the apartment thanks to a magical force. When Bigby solved the big rune puzzle, he was knocked into a surreal flashback in a graveyard. It all has the tone of a serial killer drama, right down to the hidden bedroom in the apartment filled with occult sketches. That direction is no surprise considering Garriss’ background.

“I spent a year working on Criminal Minds out of college,” Garriss said. “It was a show about serial killers, and it had episodic, cinematic production. I had only worked on open-world RPGs when I got to do that, and for me, this feels like getting to go back to some other space and explore the emotions, thoughts, and makeup of people who are pushed to the absolute brink.”

Image: Telltale Games/PM Studios

The stylized cynicism of film noir has also been an aesthetic inspiration for the team. That very much showed in the demo, especially in the opening moments where Bigby wandered through the dark streets of Queens. Garris teased that the structure of the story will follow the genre’s traditions, balancing Bigby’s personal story with a mystery that’s much bigger than him.

“Really great noir starts small and explodes out, like a domino effect. What we show in the demo here is an initial mystery that draws Bigby in, but as the story unfolds, it shifts gears into an interlocking series of mysteries that will speak to the structural bedrock of Fabletown, and at the same time, be attacking Bigby in a very personal way.”

While it’s been a long wait, it finally seems like The Wolf Among Us 2 might actually launch next year. Garriss said that the plan is to release it all at once rather than in chapters over time, but the game will still have an episodic format. In a best-case scenario, the long delay could wind up being a blessing. The narrative adventure genre is poised for a renaissance following last year’s Dispatch. That’s ironic considering that its developer, Adhoc, was originally working on The Wolf Among Us 2, but left the project to focus on Dispatch. (There don’t appear to be too many raw feelings on Telltale’s end, considering that some of the people developing the sequel also worked on Dispatch.) There’s a clear hunger for the format right now that might not have been as pronounced in 2019, and The Wolf Among Us 2 is perfectly poised to capitalize.