I had to shamefully admit that I hadn’t yet played The Wolf Among Us to the kind developers of Telltale when they showed me its sequel. While I have heard how much players love that particular world and adventure, I think I put in 15 minutes into the original, was upset about its performance, and then decided I’d come back to it later. Well later seems to be 2026, because the remaster is almost here. Yet I still was curious how this team, consisting largely of fans of the original but not necessarily the original team, would be tackling The Wolf Among Us 2. I’m happy to report that while it is still looking a bit rough, this is one that detective and mystery fans should absolutely be excited for next year.

The Wolf Among Us 2 picks up six months after the events of the original. Bigby Wolf, a gruff detective, is on the trail after a series of murders. He’s approached by a human detective who is unaware that a world of magic and fairytale creatures are living in secret in 1980’s New York City. As you investigate crime scenes and try to puzzle together clues it seems to be that a larger mystery is at play that even affects Bigby himself. The game retains the gorgeous third-person visual style of the original, with harsh outlines and powered by a truly stunning lighting system that really sells the noire-vibe the game is going for. You can freely look and walk around the scenes and interact with multiple objects.

It wouldn’t be a Telltale game if there weren't a lot of choices to be made, and here the well-recognized dialogue system of the studio returns. Each conversation gives you a few seconds to make a decision on how Bigby responds. A lot of these conversations will have massive outcomes that impact the rest of the story. But what the developers are particularly proud of this time around is the diegetic system. When exploring the crime scenes, Bigby isn’t guided by arrows, but rather all UI elements are minimized as much as possible. You should be able to pick out clues and interactable objects by closely observing the scenes. Even if you miss stuff, the game will gently nudge you in the right direction without characters spewing the answer out immediately. This applies to the hint system as well for the puzzles. Story-focused players can skip these with an auto-solve button if they choose, but for players who do need a hand they deploy some clever tricks to make the solution clear. For example, Bigby pulls out a written clue he grabbed earlier and places it next to the puzzle so you can make the connection. I love these little touches that feel like a considered approach for puzzle design.

The game will still retain an episodic structure, though the game ships with all the episodes immediately available. The team told me that this fits the playstyle for players well, with especially busy folks being able to tackle the game a little bit at a time each evening. I also have to commend the developers for the bravery of showing this game very much still in progress. Certain scenes still had greyboxes and descriptions of plot events in the demo, rather than funneling my experience through a very specific lens. In an age where Generative AI is embraced by many media productions for these tasks, the developers’ resolve on knowing that this isn’t a detriment to the experience and to trust their handcrafted process must be acknowledged and celebrated. Games aren’t simply announced and then done. It’s a craft and seeing it on full display made me honestly even more excited for The Wolf Among Us 2.

All in all, while I can’t judge how well this narrative aligns with the original, I saw enough of The Wolf Among Us 2 to make me very excited to finally dive into this series. The refinement of the visual style, the clever touches made to incorporate and expand on the Telltale gameplay as well the wonderful voice performances were enough to hook me. Fans of The Wolf Among Us seemingly have nothing to worry about as the team is taking their task of following up that title with great care. At the very least, I have one detective game that I can look forward to when it releases sometime next year.