The Wolf Among Us

When it comes to narrative based video games, Telltale Games is the company most often associated with success in the field. As a company, they’ve had their ups and downs, but one thing all of their games share is a strong sense of story. Telltale has recently ceased production on all of their in progress games, leading many to believe that the company’s days are numbered. One of these games was going to be a sequel to their 2014 cult classic, The Wolf Among Us. Acting as a prequel to Vertigo Comics “Fables” series, written and created by Bill Willingham, The Wolf Among Us is remembered as one of Telltale’s best narrative driven games.

From the first moment playing The Wolf Among Us, I was hooked on the premise of the world the game takes place in. Set in a fictionalized version of New York City, the characters of fairy tales and folklore are forced to hide themselves in the city’s underbelly. Called Fables, the characters range from princes and princesses, to anthropomorphic animals, who must use magic to fit into the human world. The cast of characters in the game is both familiar and completely new. The player takes the role of Bigby Wolf, more commonly known as “The Big Bad Wolf,” as he works as the sheriff of Fabletown. But, in a world where magic is common, and must be heavily regulated, the job of sheriff is far from simple. Through five chapters of the game, Bigby finds himself having to solve problems familiar to the magical world, as well as ones they have learned from their time with the humans, not to mention dealing with his own past as a villain. Within the first few seconds of gameplay it becomes clear that these are not the same fairy tales we were told as children. Containing drugs, murder, and brief nudity, the world of Fables imagines a much darker version of “happily ever after.” I’ll spare the details here, as this is a story that I recommend experiencing for yourself, but I will take a moment here to explain why I think the story is so successful. Unlike most video games, The Wolf Among Us uses very literary techniques of metaphor and symbolism. Fables must stay hidden, which is easy enough for characters like Snow White, who have always been human in appearance. But characters such as animals and trolls, have a distinct disadvantage in our world, as they must pay for magic to blend in. Fabletown is a run down area of the city, but this is made even worse for those fables who can’t afford the magic, and risk being sent away to “the farm”. Meant to be a safe place for fables who can’t blend in, the farm has become a prison for fables who couldn’t afford to live in Fabletown proper. These disenfranchised fables are used throughout the game as a metaphor, representing the lower rungs of society. We see noble characters from our childhood resorting to unspeakable means simply in order to scrape by. The premise and moving story alone are very strong in The Wolf Among Us, but the addition of very effective literary techniques warrants a 10 out of 10 score from me on the story of this game. If the Fables comic series that the game is based on is anything like this game, I’m excited to read it.

The main thing that separates The Wolf Among Us from the Fables comics though, is of course that this is a video game, bringing some interesting gameplay along to aid the story. Some people consider The Wolf Among Us to be more of an “Interactive Movie” than a true video game, and it’s easy to see why they would. Most of the experience is watching different cutscenes, while being allowed to choose how Bigby Wolf responds to various prompts. Depending on how the player chooses to react, the story may change slightly. There are also some instances in the game where the player is allowed to move around freely in a given environment, picking up clues to uncover a mystery, or just making themselves feel more at home in the world of the game. These sections play like a typical point and click adventure, although, there are rarely any objects to collect, and interactions are, for the most part, kept limited to those that are strictly necessary to the story. Finally, some of the gameplay takes the form of quick time events. Usually QTEs are only present to give the player the feeling of having input in the story, even if that input doesn’t really matter in the end. In my experience, the quick time events present in The Wolf Among Us don’t have any major story changing outcomes, but it was clear that they were meant to be meaningful in this game. Rather than feeling thrown in at the last moment, as they have in some other games I’ve played, they felt planned here. Even though they are mostly unnecessary, they still felt rewarding. There aren’t a plethora of new and exciting mechanics to explore in The Wolf Among Us, but the gameplay does its job, and does it well. I give the overall gameplay of The Wolf Among Us a 7 out of 10.

Though the gameplay is a bit unoriginal, what is unique in The Wolf Among Us is how the gameplay alters the story. Not every choice the player makes has lasting effects, as the game might want you to believe, but I have identified a number of choices where the outcome of the story is very different depending on what they player does. For example, in my playthrough, I was presented with two fables who needed my help, and was forced to choose who to help first. I made the choice that I felt logically made sense at the time, but later found out that a minor character had died because I didn’t reach the second location in time to save them. There are also certain prompts, like using a vending machine, that can’t be chosen at all if the player has done certain things in the past, like use up all of their money. But by far the most effective use of gameplay to alter the story is the time limit players have on selecting responses. Unlike most games of this kind, the player has a limited time to choose how to respond to most choices. This helps the game feel more real, as characters will react to Bigby’s silence if the player fails to make a decision in time. Just like in real life, silence has the power to speak volumes. This is a mechanic that I hadn’t seen before, and really appreciated as I tried to find the best response option. As such, in terms of gameplay being used to connect and drive the story, I’m giving The Wolf Among Us an 8 out of 10.

Telltale Games success is something of a rollercoaster ride, which is why it’s not hard to believe that they can’t keep things afloat anymore. But when I play their better games, like The Wolf Among Us, I’m saddened by the fact that I likely won’t get to see any new success out of their company again. The potential for a sequel is rich so rich in this game, that I can only imagine what Telltale might have been able to deliver if they were able to complete it. At least there are the Fables comics to continue the story started in The Wolf Among Us. This is often remembered as one of Telltale’s greatest hits, and it’s easy to see why. Regardless of what the company became after this game’s publication, I can’t recommend enough revisiting them at their height by giving The Wolf Among Us a play.