Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Little Red Riding Hood. One day, she decided to bring a basket of goodies to her ailing grandmother who lived in the spooky woods. When she finally arrived at her grandma’s cabin, a hoarse voice called out to her, inviting her inside. She obliged and entered the dimly-lit cottage. Little Red Riding Hood was always a gullible child, and when a strangely hairy version of her grandmother assured her she was, in fact, her grandmother, Little Red found herself quickly eaten up by the Big Bad Wolf. Next, the woodsman came, cut open the beast, and saved the day. That’s about where the story ends, right?
Not according to Fables, a graphic novel series by Bill Willingham that extends the lore of popular fairy tales into the modern day. For example, Bigby Wolf – Big, Bad – no longer spends his days hunting families to eat. Instead, he polices Fabletown, a section of New York City where fairy-tale characters live new lives using glamours – expensive magic that allows them to appear human. Bigby, along with Snow White (recently divorced from Prince Charming due to his “infidelities”) work under a bizarrely authoritative Ichabod Crane who leads up the Fabletown police force.
Telltale Games, developers of the hugely successful The Walking Dead episodic adventure game series, have decided to tackle the strange world of Fables with The Wolf Among Us. Unsurprisingly, Telltale has nailed Willingham’s quirky universe and pulled us into the graphic novel with an intriguing first episode.
In The Wolf Among Us – Episode One: Faith, players follow Bigby Wolf as he is called for help by Mr. Toad, a four-foot amphibian in charge of a slummy apartment complex. Upon arriving at the building, Bigby confronts Mr. Toad about his appearance and lack of glamours. Players learn that glamour salespeople are charging extraordinary sums and that Fabletown is in a very troubled state.
Mr. Toad, who has lost much of his fairy-tale charm, informs Bigby that the Woodsman, who lives upstairs, is intoxicated and causing a ruckus. Bigby climbs the staircase to confront his old nemesis and finds the lumberjack attacking a “working girl” in his apartment. After a quicktime event-based fight, the drunk Woodsman winds up with his own axe lodged in his skull, but thanks to Fable magic, manages to escape.
Through a mysterious dialogue with the prostitute, Bigby learns that there is more to this situation than a drunken lumberjack’s rage, and returns to his apartment to think on the events. Upon awakening in the morning, Bigby finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery and together with Snow White, he meets with Ichabod Crane and begins his sleuthing.
While the story seemed to start off slowly in Bigby’s conversation with Mr. Toad – most likely due to my unfamiliarity with the graphic novels – it quickly escalated in the confrontation with the Woodsman. Some interesting dialogue options in later meetings with the Fables filled in any questions I had about the universe and so previous knowledge of the world is not required to enjoy the experience.
The Wolf Among Us‘s gameplay mechanics and style will be immediately recognizable to anyone that has experienced Telltale’s The Walking Dead. Players move Bigby with W,A,S, and D, and use the mouse to look around the environment. Bigby can examine items and environments for clues, as well as engage in conversations with the creatures and characters of Fabletown.
Dialogue is incredibly well executed – as expected – and the tension in choosing the right response before the timer runs out is as strong as in TWD, despite the lack of shambling hordes. In one particular interrogation sequence, the order the player notices evidence can cause the dialogue to play out differently, and the suspect may even talk his way out of the situation if Bigby’s responses aren’t strong enough.
The Wolf Among Us appears to be more item-oriented than TWD, with an inventory system that allows players to offer evidence to characters for examination. The nature of a murder mystery lends itself to a more investigative system, and the game’s engine has been appropriately updated.
Telltale has once again nailed the graphic novel origins of the game, offering players a beautiful graphical style very similar to The Walking Dead but with more comic-esque backgrounds. Characters move realistically and lip-syncing is excellent. I was also pleasantly surprised to experience no screen-tearing or frame-rate issues in my two-hour playthrough.
Audio work is equally fantastic, with very impressive voice acting and a perfectly fitting score. The characters are believable (despite their fairy-tale nature) and deliver their lines appropriately in each conversation.
It is clear from their previous work that the writers at Telltale Games are some of the best in the industry and if the chilling ending to this first episode is anything to go on, this series may overtake The Walking Dead as the definitive adventure masterpiece. It is too early to tell how important player choice is in the overarching tale, but the two major plot events in this episode felt substantial and consequential. I came into this game expecting greatness and walked away hungering for the next episode more than I even expected. Telltale is a powerhouse in modern storytelling and the fairy-tale world of The Wolf Among Us is a perfect place to sink their fangs into.