Focused on narrative adventures, Telltale Games has been keeping an old style of narrative-driven game alive over the years, with other studios like Quantic Dream and Supermassive Games following it and its predecessor LucasArts' examples. The original studio sadly filed for bankruptcy in 2018, putting several of its projects in limbo, but was revived a year later by LCG Entertainment. It picked up right where it left off, trying to keep its large back catalog available on storefronts and working on other projects such as The Wolf Among Us 2: A Telltale Series, and The Expanse: A Telltale Series.
Several titles were lost when the first Telltale Games shut down, including a sequel to its Game of Thrones adaptation and an untitled Stranger Things tie-in. It seemed like development was back on track when it came to The Wolf Among Us 2 and The Expanse, both being handled by different development studios and published by LCG rebranded as Telltale. However, while The Expanse may be on track to come out in 2023, The Wolf Among Us will not be joining it. What was once a clear release window has been removed entirely, causing The Wolf Among Us 2's story to look an awful lot like that of Hollow Knight: Silksong.
The Wolf Among Us 2 Can't Catch A Break
The games began at two very different points, but eventually converged in a strange way. The Wolf Among Us was released in 2013 as an episodic prequel to Bill Willingham's Fables comic book series. Both developers and fans immediately cast their minds toward a sequel, but Telltale was too busy with multiple other projects, including Tales from the Borderlands and Minecraft: Story Mode. The idea was shelved for a few years, but a second season was finally confirmed to be on its way at the July 2017 San Diego Comic Con.
The Wolf Among Us 2 was initially set for a 2018 launch, but this was a doomed endeavor. A delay to 2019 was announced in May 2018, and the studio shut down later in September. LCG Entertainment re-announced The Wolf Among Us 2 at the 2019 Game Awards, with a later update revealing that the entire season was being worked on simultaneously. This is where The Wolf Among Us starts crossing over with Hollow Knight: Silksong, a title announced in February 2019 to follow up its 2017 predecessor. Unfortunately, neither of the games are headed in a favorable direction.
Silksong and Wolf Among Us 2's Development Holds Eerie Parallels
The Wolf Among Us 2 and Hollow Knight: Silksong have both been stuck in development since then, largely owing to the same reason. 2020 saw a global pandemic hit, causing major delays throughout the game industry. Wolf Among Us developer AdHoc Studio suffered from both the expected pandemic delays and a hiring shortage. Although Hollow Knight's Team Cherry was more compact, its homeland of Australia was hit especially hard by the pandemic, sparking continuous internal delays for Silksong.
Hope hasn't died for either game, but there's no light at the end of the tunnel yet. The Wolf Among Us 2 was set for a 2023 release, but as of March 1, its date was removed, with fans only knowing that it wasn't coming that year. Hollow Knight: Silksong made a surprise reappearance at Microsoft's 2022 E3 show, though even with the promise that every game in it would be out within a year, Silksong still has no firm date as of February 2023. The worst part is, each game still has a lot of open questions regarding how they'll actually unfold and a limited number of trailers to answer those questions. Both titles have had very rough development cycles, and hopefully they will soon escape into the waiting hands of fans.
The Wolf Among Us 2: A Telltale Series will be released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
