The Wolf Among Us 2 delayed to 2024

Telltale Games’ sequel to its critically acclaimed 2013 interactive narrative game based on the comic series Fables has been delayed by a year. The Wolf Among Us 2, which stars “The Big Bad Wolf” Bigby as protagonist, will launch in 2024 to give the studio time to rest and avoid burnout from “crunch.” Check out the trailer below, which evidently shows Bigby in some fisticuffs with The Scarecrow and Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.

The announcement was made on the Telltale Game’s Twitter account. 

"We started work on this in 2020 and we're still determined to tell the ongoing story of Big and the rest of the Fabletown gang. However, it is going to require more time. As disappointed as you are hearing this, we feel worse having to say it. But the work continues."

According to Telltale Games CEO Jamie Ottilie, some of the problems that cropped up involved finding staff to work on the game during the pandemic as well as attempts to move the game to Unreal Engine 5, which the team feels is “worth the wait.” And according to Ottilie, “If we put this game out and it's not ready, we're going to get torn to shreds.” That’s just how high expectations for this series are.

Telltale Games experienced plenty of highs and lows these past few years. Just a year after announcing The Wolf Among Us 2, the company shut down for a brief period before reopening under new management. In 2019, the game’s production was back on. 

Crunch, or compulsory overtime during game development, is a serious problem in the video game industry that leads to up to 80 hours of overtime a week, a lot of it uncompensated. Such a practice not only leads to physical and mental health concerns, but also to negative performance for developers.

The Wolf Among Us 2 is coming in 2024, presumably to the PC. In the meantime, try the excellent original game with a Wolf Among Us PC key.