Telltale has once again had to disappoint its players today, as the studio has announced via Twitter that The Wolf Among Us 2, the long-awaited follow-up to the 2013 cult classic, has been delayed yet again out of 202. Telltale Games CEO Jamie Ottilie has explained the reasons behind the delay, saying one of the biggest is to avoid crunch and staff burnout, as well as redoing and accommodating a move from Unreal Engine 4 to 5 to make use of new features and tools and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In an IGN interview, Ottilie explained that if they were to meet their 2023 deadline, they would be forced to either crunch — something that was a major issue in the original incarnation of Telltale Games and one of the multiple reasons that led to the original studio’s closure — or release an unfinished game. Both options are things that he was adamant the studio will not do. He went on to say that releasing the game in poor shape would lead to the studio and game being “torn to shreds” and that they aim to meet the high expectations of the fans, as well as commenting on crunch culture as a whole, saying “it’s not how you build a business.”
This is just the newest delay in the game’s long development, having been announced in 2017, then delayed to 2018, and canceled altogether before being revived by the new Telltale games and completely restarted in 2019. There is currently no new release date for the game.
While this will be upsetting for fans eagerly awaiting the new game, it’s always good to see a studio putting the health of its developers first, and it will hopefully result in a better game in the end. In the meantime, fans can look forward to another Telltale Series coming later this year, The Expanse, a project being made in partnership with Deck Nine Games. The studio also has an unannounced project in the works,
