Only two months into the year, and already we’re hearing about a game that won’t be coming to gamers this year…?

Telltale Games has announced on Twitter that The Wolf Among Us sequel is not scheduled for release in 2023. So it’s fair to ask if 2024 will be the next possibility. A spokesperson for Telltale told Gematsu, “If you were to ask our CEO [Jamie Ottilie], his answer is ‘when it’s ready,’ as we certainly didn’t anticipate some of the challenges of the last few years since we relaunched the company (the pandemic, a hiring shortage, etc.).”

Ottilie provided a detailed explanation to IGN: “If we put this game out and it’s not ready, we’re going to get torn to shreds. 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.

I’ve done [crunch], and I don’t want to do it again, and it’s not fair to ask it. 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 tough to recruit between COVID and the labor markets and the growth in the games industry in the last two years. So indeed, 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 continue to grow, we must stop it. We just have to stop doing it and make better choices,” he said.

And here’s Telltale’s statement: “An important update for The Wolf Among Us 2: we’ve made the difficult decision to delay The Wolf Among Us 2 out of 2023. We know it’s frustrating to hear. We started work on this in 2020 and are still determined to tell the ongoing story of Bigby and the rest of the Fabletown gang. However, it is going to require more time. As disappointed as you are hearing this, we feel worse having to say it. But the work continues. We’re committed to delivering the sequel fans deserve and doing what’s right for the game while protecting the health of our team. We appreciate your patience and understanding.”

So The Wolf Among Us 2: The Telltale Series might be released next year for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC (Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Source: Gematsu