VIDEO Telltale's Fables: The Wolf Among Us

Telltale, who made the awesome Walking Dead video game, have finally officially announced the Fables game that has been in the works since 2011. Called "The Wolf Among Us" we'll get to play as Bigby Wolf in a prequel to the comic series. I'm stoked. Coming for 360, PS3, PC and Mac this summer.

For those not familiar with Fables: It's about fairy tale characters living in a hidden community called Fabletown in modern day New York City. Bigby Wolf (as in the Big Bad Wolf, Big B, get it?) is the town Sheriff, Snow White is a government official, Prince Charming sleeps around, etc. It's an excellent comic series that I highly recommend.

 

Finally!

I'm a big fan of Fables and I love Telltale's games. I've known they were going to make a Fables game for awhile but their page for it on the site never changes whenever I go there. Looking forward to finally being able to explore Fabletown as Bigby. Interesting that it's a prequel... so much has happened in the Fableverse in the past 10+ years, with lots of characters changing dramatically (or dying, or both). It'll be interesting to go back to how they all were at the start.

Playing as Bigby while he's sheriff... do you think it will be a mystery game? It sounds like a good fit.

 

Considering where the series is now with what's become of Fabletown and the fallout of the war with The Adversary and the troubles with Mr. Dark, a prequel makes most sense to me. That's the only image that's been released so far but I definitely get a noir-ish mystery vibe from it.

 

I'm still catching up on Fables. I got into the series about 4 years ago and have slowly been reading it by buying trades when I have the money. Right now I'm focusing on Jack of Fables because I got to the point of the crossover and need to actually know what's going on, but I really love the Fableverse a lot and I love the characters and the interesting takes on traditional folklore.

I suppose a prequel does make sense in that regard. The war with the Adversary was told in full so there's no need to really go back into that, and I imagine Willingham is keeping tight control over what's done with Mr. Dark since that's current. I wouldn't mind seeing some gameplay involving the Homelands or the Literals, though...

Still, looking forward to whatever they do. I don't think they'll disappoint me.

 

I liked Fables a lot in its early years. However I think there was a clear point where Willingham ran out of ideas, which was also the point where the series began to be dominated more by him using it as a soapbox for his characters to spout off his political views.

Thankfully The Walking Dead comics had the same problem and Telltale made one of the best written games of the past decade out of it, so I have high hopes for the game. I still think a better idea for it would be to have the player control secret agent Cinderella, though. I may no longer follow the main Fables comic but I loved the two Cindy spinoffs. A shame there won't be any more.

 

First trailer has been released.
VERY Noir-ish and I love it! The first episode is apparently called "Faith".
We see Bigby, Snow, the Magic Mirror and Bufkin along with another character I couldn't recognize. I'm getting excited!

 

The Wolf Among Us is a Point and Click game available for Xbox Live and via download from the Telltale website. There will be a PSS version available in the United States on October 15th with a European release later. Unlike most video games, Telltale games have the unique feature of being divided into episodes.

Basically, each episode is two hours of content that you purchase and play individually as they come out. It's a great way to get cheap but fun games and I hope it becomes a more common practice. I purchased the first of these episodes, Faith, on Xbox Live for $4.99. I got more than my money's worth too.

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The action sequences in the game are delightfully rendered. You get a real sense of comic-book meets Pulp.​

The Wolf Among Us is based on the Fables comic book series by Bill Williamham. You don't have to be a fan of the comic book series to appreciate The Wolf Among Us. I'd argue it actually does the comic one better, emphasizing the Noir elements over the Fairy Tale to achieve a deliciously Marlowe-esque balance. There's good-girl prostitutes, sympathetic social workers, adultery, washed-up fighters, dive bars, and politicians only interested in helping the rich. It just so happens that these characters include Beauty and the Beast, Ichabod Crane, Snow White, and Grendel. As urban fantasy goes, this ranks up there with my favorites.

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Guessing who fairy-tale characters is helps propel the narrative. Which fairy princess has been reduced to prostitution? Find out!​

The premise of The Wolf Among Us is that you are Bigby Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf of storybook legend. You are presently living as a human in New York City alongside virtually every other storybook character prior to the 19th century. Bigby has reformed from his Little Red Riding Hood-chasing days and now serves as the Sheriff of New York City's Fables.

Surprisingly, this startlingly weird premise is fairly easy to follow. When I met Mister Toad as a Cockney slumlord, my first reaction was disbelief but the excellent voice-acting and writing plunged me head first into the world's weird rules. It helps that the plotline is straight out of a classic Detective novel.

The best part of The Wolf Among Us is the storytelling, which functions like an interactive movie. You only have X amount of time to respond and this helps keep the plot going as there's no "wrong answers" but you can come off as sympathetic, an ass, or threatening. All seem within Bigby's character and I appreciated that.

The system reminded me strongly of Alpha Protocol, an underrated game which employed a similar technique. I was surprised to find that strong-arming characters was just as enjoyable as trying the more peaceful approach, so there's never really a preferred method. I've already replayed the game twice and got different results each time. Choice matters in The Wolf Among Us and that's a rare thing you can say in video games, even ones which pretend that such a thing exists.

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Yes, one of the Three Little Pigs is crashing on Bigby's chair.​

The graphics bear special mention. The Wolf Among Us is rendered in a gritty-comic book manner that is normally done in custcenes but occasionally moves from panel-to-panel. The art style is highly evocative and lent the game a surreal feel which helped me get into the world. It's not Rockstar-grade animation but it doesn't have to be and is perfectly serviceable for what it is. The comic book-style animation doesn't interfere with the action either, making the chase and fight sequences unique. I especially liked the choice during fight scenes as the game allows the use of multiple objects during encounters in order to beat your opponent.

Combat in The Wolf Among Us is done entirely as Quick-Time Events (QTEs). These events are relatively easy compared to something like Castlevania: Lord of Shadow, however, and work with the cinematic atmosphere of the battles. There's only a couple of fights in the game but both are memorable. You also get the opportunity to strong arm suspects if you desire, an action which won't you any points with them but can be quite satisfying. By the end of the first episode, you'll feel like you're a werewolf private detective everyone is afraid of. It's a good feeling.

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Our hero doing the legwork expected of a detective.​

The characters are really the heart of The Wolf Among Us. I quickly bonded to Bigby, Snow White, Mister Toad, Faith, and even the Woodsman. They all felt simultaneously like characters out of a storybook as well as Noir archetypes. While one character dies way too soon and in a very cliche manner, I'm holding out hope she'll show up again later due to the somewhat nebulous rules regarding Fable death. Maybe it's foolhardy but it's my hope. I strongly encourage people to pick up this game.

9.5/10

 

Already have a thread: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/telltales-fables-the-wolf-among-us.50011038/

 

Threads merged.

 

I finally got a chance to play this today and I liked it a lot! It's essentially more of the same of the excellent Walking Dead game but not as dark and depressing. Instead we get a cool 80's noir setting. And getting to play as Bigby is just plain cool. I thought the "twist" at the end was kind of uninspired though. Fans of the comic will see right through that cliffhanger.

 

I was all excited to play episode 2 today, but the season passes aren't working on 360 at the moment. Grrrr,

 

So it's basically a spin on ABC's Once Upon a Time.

 

If Once Upon a Time was on something like HBO, and was depressing while filled with violence and swearing. lol

 

Fables has been around since 2002 or so. If anything Once Upon a Time would be copying it.

Still haven't played it. I'm waiting for it to all be released so I can just play it all at once.

 

No, like MrZAP said, Once Upon a Time is a spin on Fables. In fact, ABC had a deal in place to make a Fables TV show that fell through. About a year later Once Upon a Time started airing. So basically, ABC stole the idea and rather than licence the show they used the same public domain characters and made their own version. The creator of Fables, Bill Willingham says he has no hard feelings though and urges fans to check out both.

With that out of the way, I played Chapter 2 of AWAU and really enjoyed it (as expected). It seemed a bit shorter than Chapter 1 but that could be my imagination. Jack and Bluebeard make their Telltale debuts and both were great. It's real fun to see characters that don't show up in the comic series anymore. Fingers crossed for a Boy Blue appearance in the next chapter!

 

Finally, Xbox sent me a download code for episode 2 since the season passes aren't working.

 

Played episode 2.

Spoiler

- Not having read the comics, I am glad Snow didn't die.
- Playing as a dude pissed off Snow was dead, I apparently went against the grain and never acknowledged Crane and then beat the crap out of Tweetledee. Both of those decisions went against the majority.
- Once Snow was alive all my decisions seemed to match up with everyone else.
- I like that Crane is (apparently) the killer, because I hated him from the second he showed up in episode 1.

 

Finished this last night. Overall I enjoyed it but I really wish there was more Bloody Mary.

 

I bought it over Thanksgiving and finished the first run in two days. Aside from the lack of Boy Blue and Prince Charming, it did not disappoint. I loved seeing some of the darker aspects of Fabletown that we haven't seen before, and all the new characters (Bloody Mary was especially interesting... and completely chilling). I'm still pondering on that ending, too.

Bigby's, Snow's, and Bluebeard's VAs were absolutely, unexpectedly perfect. Jack's was a bit eh, though.

I still have to go back for at least another run, probably two, so I can get all of the Books of Fables and do all the choices, but that'll wait a bit while I play some other games. I hope there's a sequel jumping ahead a bit... a Cinderella game would be pretty cool. Not really expecting it, though.

 

With Telltale working on Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands, possibly another Walking dead series and the Minecraft game I don't see how they're going to make another for a while.

 

So after years of development hell Season 2 was finally getting off the ground.

Except not.

Because Telltale Games has just slashed 90% of the staff without severance and canceled almost everything.



I mean, they've been struggling for a few years now because of management problems, but I kinda thought they had turned the corner after their shake-up last year. But nope.

 

It's a bloody shame. TWAU ended on such a cliffhanger and I couldn't wait to see what happened next.

 

That sucks, because I REALLY loved their take on Batman.