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I initially had no intention of ever playing The Wolf Among Us. It happened to crop up while I was waiting for The Walking Dead: Season Two. I had no prior knowledge of the series and knew very little about what the game was supposed to be about. I knew only that it was based on the Fables series, but I had never heard of that before either. Many apologies to Bill Wingham, that egregious error is something I am going am going to have to rectify. Thankfully, it also has some elements that also appeased the horror fan in me, albeit in a different way than I expected.
In many ways, The Wolf Among Us is much what you’d come to expect from Telltale Games; a point and click adventure with a unique visual style and one hell of a story. That story requires a little bit of an introduction. As mentioned already, it is set in the Fables universe, which brings all of your favourite childhood story characters into a much more gritty and mature light. The populace of the Homelands have fled to our world, the Mundy (mundane) world and have set up a community in Manhattan, aptly named Fabletown. Magic spells keep the Mundies’ (that’s…normal people) suspicion at bay, but it doesn’t come without a cost. Although they fled from war and terror, the Fables soon came to find that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Bigby Wolf is your unlikely hero in The Wolf Among Us. As the Sheriff of Fabletown, The Big Bad Wolf is in a position that requires him to leave his house-destroying, grandmother-eating ways behind him to keep the peace. When the Fables fled from the Homelands and settled in Fabletown, their past crimes were forgiven, but Fables have a hard time trusting the former Fable Terrorist and they’re not shy about letting him know.
This is really just scratching the surface and despite the game’s rich source material, it never really seems to get lost in those details, they’re offered up as way to enrich the world. The plot surrounds the murder of Fable whose head was left at the entrance to the Woodlands, which acts as the town hall of Fabletown. The investigation leads you down the dark alleys of Fabletown and shows you just how destitute and desperate some of these Fables really are. For someone who is unfamiliar with the series, each new Fable you meet is like an Easter egg of despair. It’s heartbreaking when you think about who these Fables were and how magical they were to you as a child and who they are now.
The art style here is undeniably Telltale Games. Not the most realistic of visuals, but a style that I never get tired of seeing. Much like with The Walking Dead, the cell-shaded visuals make it seem like the comic panels are coming alive, while at the same time being dark and gritty.
At its core, The Wolf Among Us is a point and click adventure, much like The Walking Dead and the rest of Telltale Games’ titles. There are choices to be made but in the grand scheme of things, the majority of the choices affect your overall outcome very little, but that’s not to say that it doesn’t affect it at all. Think of it more like skiing down a mountain and approaching a fork in the patch. You can take any path you like – you’ll still end up at the bottom of the slope, but the scenery and the people you meet on the slope is different for each path. Many of the choices in The Wolf Among Us stem from Bigby trying (or not trying) to change his character flaws. Is he still an asshole who would rather eat people than help them, or as he changed his evil ways? There are also choices which allow you to connect evidence together and progress the investigation.
There are a lot more action sequences in The Wolf Among Us than fans of The Walking Dead might be used to. Indeed, Bigby’s method of investigation sometimes involves hard punches rather than interviews, even if you are trying to be nice. Hey, some people just want to fight – others need a few punches to loosen their tongue.
As for why The Wolf Among Us deserves an honourable mention, I’d have to go back to the story. There aren’t many games that can leave me speechless, jaw to the floor, but this is one of them. The fact that my only knowledge surrounding the Fables is what I gleaned off of childrens’ books 25 years ago just adds to the experience. To see the Fables that you thought you knew acting as a slumlord or the proprietor of a strip joint (deliciously called the Pudding and Pie, for the record) is just a one-two punch to the gut, but it’s written well enough to be extremely entertaining. The plot of the game itself is truly mature-themed. It doesn’t just pretend to be mature by wading waist-deep in gibs and streams of curse words. The Wolf Among Us not only delves into murder, but topics such as prostitution and exploitation. Hell, there’s even an ever-present social commentary on the 99%.
As Bigby Wolf, you tend to feel almost invincible. After all, you’re the Big Bad Wolf of legend – you’re made to feel stronger than other Fables, and for the most part you are. But that doesn’t mean that you’re the strongest. When the Glamours come off, that’s when shit gets real. There are some Fables who can rightfully fuck you up, and they make no effort to hide it. The horror enthusiast in me was certainly appeased by fables like The Jersey Devil, Grendel – Titans, as they’re referred to in game. They’re monsters through and through. But even they get the willies when one mentions Bloody Mary.
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (two thugs) are notably frightened of her when she makes her first appearance, and the thought of her makes other Fables shudder in fear. She even makes Bigby uncomfortable, as she’s the one Fable that I’ve found that even in mundy form could really put the hurt on him. I’ve repressed the memory of her in her other form. She often gets this maniacal look in her eye and once you know what she does, and what she’s capable of, it’s enough to make your blood run cold. Particularly when you look into a mirror and see her staring back at you.
While I didn’t have any issues with the game on PC with keyboard and mouse controls, my experience with the Playstation 3 version was a little less than great. The PS3’s controls are clunky and in some instances don’t work at all. I digress, that was just one issue in a pile of them for the PS3 version. To put it bluntly, Telltale Games titles are made for and just all around better on the PC. It’s a shame, because Telltale seems insistent of pushing their games out to all consoles, whether they’re ready or not. This review is for the PC version of the game, and I’m not about to fault it for the console’s shortcomings.
If you enjoyed The Walking Dead and haven’t yet played The Wolf Among Us, you should definitely give it a shot. Because it’s a murder mystery and because of how deep the world of Fables is, there’s definitely room for a sequel here, and it’s something that I sincerely hope that Telltale pursues.
And they all lived happily ever after? ‘fraid not.
