The wait for The Wolf Among Us 2 has been a long one, made even longer by all the turbulence developer Telltale Games has suffered behind the scenes, but as it turns out, it’s going to be an even longer wait than previously anticipated. Previously confirmed to be launching sometime in 2023, the highly anticipated sequel has now been delayed and will be out in 2024.
Telltale Games made the announcement in a post published on its official Twitter page, saying it remains “delivering the sequel fans deserve and doing what’s right for the game while protecting the health of our team.”
Meanwhile, the developer also also provided more information on the game’s development and the reasons behind the delay while speaking with IGN.
“If we put this game out and it’s not ready, we’re going to get torn to shreds,” Telltale Games CEO Jamie Ottilie said. “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.”
Ottilie also explains that the the development team wants to avoid having to crunch, something that he says the games development industry has traditionally not been very good at, and ensuring the health of the team was another factor contributing to the decision to delay the game.
“I’ve done [crunch], and I don’t want to do it again, and it’s not fair to ask it,” he said. “You can’t plan a business around it. So yeah, part of it is about maintaining a healthy work culture. We don’t want to burn out our good people. It has been incredibly difficult to recruit the last two years between COVID and the labor markets and the growth in the games industry. So certainly, burning people out or grinding them down is the wrong thing to do long-term. It’s not how you build a business. And as an industry, we’re terrible about it. We burn our people out. We burn our best people out faster. And as an industry, if we’re going to continue to grow, we have to stop it. We just have to stop doing it and make better choices.”
It’s also been confirmed that The Wolf Among Us 2 has switched engines, and is now being developed using Unreal Engine 5. Read more on that through here.
As previously confirmed, unlike the original game, all episodes of The Wolf Among Us 2 are being developed together, which means the gaps between all episodes’ releases won’t be too long and will be mapped out in a much more cohesive fashion.
When it launches, The Wolf Among Us 2 will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Meanwhile, Telltale Games is also currently working on The Expanse: A Telltale Series alongside Deck Nine, which is due out this Summer.
We’ve made the difficult decision to delay The Wolf Among Us 2 #TWAU2.
To give more context, we spoke with IGN: https://t.co/afoCUHZwIy pic.twitter.com/KhrAfIrwYB
— Telltale (@telltalegames) March 1, 2023
