Telltale Games delays The Wolf Among Us 2 to avoid crunch and burnout

Telltale Games confirmed The Wolf Among Us 2, originally meant to release sometime this year, has now been pushed back to 2024. 

Speaking to IGN, CEO James Ottilie was quite candid in explaining that he wanted to ensure the team didn't burn themselves out on getting the game out the door. While it wasn't the only reason for the game's delay, it played a huge factor, and he also didn't want the studio to have to crunch. 

Crunch was an alleged contributor to the end of the original Telltale, and Ottilie flat out said it's something he wants to avoid with this new studio. "You can't plan a business around it," he said. "Part of it is about maintaining a healthy work culture. We don't want to burn out our good people."

Both crunch and burnout remain important topics of discussion in the industry, and he went further by saying the game industry needs to be better about addressing both. "If we're going to continue to grow, we have to stop it. We just have to stop doing it and make better choices."

The Wolf Among Us gets Unreal

The other big reason for The Wolf of Among Us 2's delay is that the project is jumping over to Unreal Engine 5. Previously, the game was developed with Unreal Engine 4, but Ottilie told IGN that Epic's newest engine has "interesting features" that Telltale's engineers and artists advocated for using. 

As a result of the engine change, he admitted that Telltale would have to redo "quite a bit of work" that was already completed in Unreal Engine 4. 

During the heyday of the original Telltale, the proprietary Telltale Tool engine used on many of its many games was routinely criticized. The studio intended to jump to Unity with its game adaptation of Netflix's Stranger Things series, but it closed down before that game could be released.

With The Wolf Among Us 2, Telltale is yet another developer that's jumping over to Unreal Engine 5. In recent months, studios such as 343 Industries and CD Projekt Red have confirmed they'll be using the engine for their next projects.