The announcement thatThe Wolf Among Us 2was once again in development at The Game Awards 2019 took many by surprise. After all, Telltale Games laid off its development staff through a majority studio closure in 2018, andThe Wolf Among 2’s development was canceled. NowThe Wolf Among Us 2is back in development, with the new version of Telltale Games starting entirely from scratch.
In August earlier this year, the remaining structure of Telltale wasbought by a holding company named LCG Entertainment. Some of Telltale’s property licenses remained with the company, includingThe Wolf Among Us. Since then, LCG Entertainment has begun rebuilding Telltale with a new creative team.The Wolf Among Us 2will be its first project, made in partnership with AdHoc Studio, with AdHoc handling the creative aspect of the game and Telltale handling other aspects of development.
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LCG CEO Jamie Ottilie described the situation in an interview with US Gamer, saying the team has “completely restarted the development of the game.” The reasons why are likely complicated, but Ottilie says it’s so the game’s new creative team can have “a clean slate to start with.“AdHoc, which is a new studio formed by past Telltale veteransincludingThe Wolf Among Us' lead writer and two of its directors, will have as much creative freedom as it needs.
What may be the largest reason for starting from scratch, however, is the decision to use a new engine forThe Wolf Among Us 2. Where all past Telltale projects were built on an in-house engine, AdHoc will be buildingThe Wolf Among Us 2onUnreal Engine 4. It stands to reason that any work that might have been done onThe Wolf Among Us 2before it was canceled wouldn’t be able to be transferred to Unreal Engine 4.
It’s unclear just how many ofThe Wolf Among Us' original developers are working onThe Wolf Among Us 2, or even how many Telltale employees from the majority studio closure are involved.The Wolf Among Us 2may be a truly inspired sequelto the original, it could be something entirely different, or it could prove to be an unfortunate example of why Telltale should have been let go. Much remains to be said, and to be proved, about Telltale’s direction going forward.The Wolf Among Us 2will hopefully be good for both the Telltale/AdHoc’s developers and their past fans.
The Wolf Among Us 2is coming to PC and consoles, but has no announced release window.
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