Review - The Wolf Among Us Remastered

Roberto Nieves

11 minutes ago

6 min read

Developer: Telltale

Publisher: Telltale, PM Studios

Available on: PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (Nintendo Switch release delayed)

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5

Storytelling is a critical endeavor in a video game. It’s an art of finding the right chemistry of characters and dialogue to immerse the player in an engrossing story. This isn't easy, but for years, the cracked team at Telltale Games set the bar for storytelling with The Walking Dead and Batman, as well as a plethora of other games. There are many great hallmarks to Telltale Games’ portfolio, but among one of the biggest, and perhaps the best, is The Wolf Among Us.

Based on the graphic novel series Fables by Bill Willingham, The Wolf Among Us serves as a prequel to Fables. This interactive narrative-driven graphic novel adventure first debuted in 2013 and has now been brought back as The Wolf Among Us Remastered. Featuring an updated presentation and a new look behind the scenes, now is a great time as ever to dive back into the noir masterpiece that is The Wolf Among Us

A Fresh Coat of Paint

The Wolf Among Us Remastered is a narrative-driven graphic novel detective adventure. Players play as Bigby, the Big Bad Wolf. The goal of the game is to follow the story and make choices across the game’s five chapters. The game is tailored by the choices made, and this includes affecting entire outcomes in the story. Everything in The Wolf Among Us Remastered reacts to every choice made. Even silence is an option.

The Wolf Among Us was originally released 16 years ago on 7th generation systems and released episodically to critical and commercial acclaim. The Wolf Among Us Remastered puts all five episodes of its first season together. In addition to a visual and audio upgrade, there are playable deleted levels and behind-the-scenes material such as developer commentary and interviews. Additionally, there is a “noir mode” that puts everything in black and white to give a true noir detective experience.

The Wolf Among Us Remastered gives players some agency in exploring various areas, collecting clues, and piecing together the narrative puzzle. The game provides simple controls and UI to understand what to look for and what to do. It’s similar to a point-and-click adventure but not as involved. The same is applied to the game’s quick-time events during combat, which guide players with prompts.

At the heart of the gameplay are the dialogue options. Players can be more direct, passive, sarcastically humorous, or use silence for their decisions. With that center, the story and chemistry have to be immersive, top-notch, and investing for the player. The Wolf Among Us Remastered may be decades old, but the story it delivers is more profound and relevant than ever.

A Tale To Be Told

This starts with the setting. Fairytales and folklore always portray an idealistic and whimsical setting, where there are happily ever afters. When mixed in with the harsh realities of the real world, especially a turbulent city like 1980s New York, there are no happily ever afters. There is chaos and despair as this long-living community grapples with finding jobs, making money, and staying alive. It’s a contradiction to the lifestyle that the Fables had, and this leads to characters facing this jarring switch in their lifestyle, forcing them to make difficult choices at the hands of a failing system.

At its core, The Wolf Among Us Remastered has many underlying themes, told through these characters, that feel more with the times than before. In 2013, we still believed in the nobility of institutions and systems, but in 2026, there are big questions about those systems and whether they can be changed from within or dismantled altogether. What is a system without accountability and service to the public when those were the principles to which they were built? What does that do to a community and a population? What happens to the usurpers of that system, and do they exploit the weaknesses of the old system to provide something they deem better?

The Wolf Among Us Remastered is a tale of the darkness that corruption, power, and neglectful nature can bring to a community displaced from their homelands. It’s a tale of a haunting past and how that can stay attached in the present. It isn’t all doom and gloom, however. In the grittiness and darkness, there is a weaving of hope. Bigby is the Sheriff, but in a way, he is like the vigilantes of the Old West. He has a code that he sticks to of right and wrong, founded on principle. However, he has a checkered past. He has a battle of either resisting or giving in to those instincts. Does he want to change or continue to be feared? That is entirely up to you.

Beyond the themes, The Wolf Among Us Remastered is a refreshingly bold take on detective noir, with a supernatural and fantasy flair. Bigby, voiced by Adam Harrington, commands a character who is tough and stoic, but has puzzling feelings about his past and who he wants to be in the present. Of course, that is where the player comes in to make decisions that shape his character. Adam Harrington is complemented by a stellar voice cast including Erin Yvette, Dave Fennoy, and many others.

Same Story, improved look

The characters are complemented by a visual style that feels pulled from the very pages of the Fables graphic novel. The original release was already quite a sharp-looking game, and the graphics really pop off. The entire game received a visual overhaul, with updated textures. There are wrinkles and shirts and finer facial expressions. Bigby’s fur, when he goes into werewolf form, looks like additional fur instead of something just tacked on.

From an audio perspective, the remastered version does a very good job balancing out voice work and music. The music score from Jared Emerson Johnson is more highlighted, and the voice work sounds just as clear as ever. It's clear that The Wolf Among Us Remastered lives up to the Remastered part. Even the deleted scenes and interviews are fascinating looks into the development process and give insight into the building blocks of storytelling. I also tried the Noir Mode for a bit, and while it did put a new visual spin on the gameplay experience, it could have added more to it, like film grain and film cell scratches.

There may have been a missed opportunity, however. I could have easily imagined an expansion to the story by incorporating new scenes, or perhaps providing a tease for the upcoming sequel, The Wolf Among Us 2. The long-gestating sequel is finally set for release in the next year. It would have been nice to have a small playable tease as to what to expect, especially as the ending, while conclusive, leaves a few teases that have kept players waiting for the past 13 years.

Despite this, it has been confirmed by Telltale Games that the decisions made in The Wolf Among Us Remastered do carry over into The Wolf Among Us 2. This makes this playthrough especially meaningful and important for those who want to dive into the sequel in 2027. This was a feature that was commonplace in earlier releases from Telltale Games, and it’s great to see it return here, though it only makes the anticipation even more difficult to bear.

The Wolf Among Us Remastered

The Wolf Among Us Remastered is another fantastic way to revisit this pivotal masterpiece in storytelling. The tale is as refreshing, timely, and profound as ever. The gameplay, action, and characters still hold up all these years later. The extra content gives a further glimpse into the interesting creative process of adapting Fables into The Wolf Among Us.

For players looking for another round, The Wolf Among Us Remastered still holds up well. For newcomers, prepare for the ride of your life. For seasoned players like me, this makes the wait for the sequel all that much tougher to stomach, but I’m glad to have revisited one of my favorite games of all time. The Wolf Among Us Remastered is excellent, whether this is your first time or, like me, your fourth. Definitely pick this one up. Go get ‘em, Bigby!