Telltale Games has announced that it has delayed its long-awaited sequel to “The Wolf Among Us,” pushing the project out of 2023 and into 2024.
The company was shut down and then resurrected by LCG Entertainment in 2019 with the game announced whilst still in very early pre-production. A combination of taking time to fully staff up, usual game development, and the pandemic meant it has taken a while.
Speaking with IGN, Telltale Games CEO Jamie Ottilie says the delay is being done in an effort to avoid crunch and team burnout – in addition to accommodating a move from Unreal Engine 4 to 5.
Ottilie says the choice was made for a number of reasons, but primarily to avoid burnout, and to avoid shipping an unfinished game like so many major game titles have been in recent years. He says:
“Making games is difficult and they need time to be right, and it doesn’t do any of us any good to ship something that’s not ready… If we put this game out and it’s not ready, we’re going to get torn to shreds.
The expectations are pretty high, and we want time to meet those and we want to be proud of it and know that, ‘Hey, this is the best game we could have made.’ Let the world say what they will [once] it’s done, but at least we know that in these times, in these conditions, this is the best game that we could make.”
Recently, Telltale made the decision to switch from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, a move that grants new features and tools the engineers and artists can use – even if it means redoing “quite a bit of work” that was already done in Unreal 4.
Like its predecessor, “The Wolf Among Us 2” will be an episodic release but this time it’s being developed all at once – meaning every episode will be complete before they start releasing (ensuring a consistent release schedule).
Telltale will also be releasing “The Expanse: A Telltale Series,” made in partnership with Deck Nine Games, this year.
