The Wolf Among Us Interview: ‘They Will Remember That’

Goodman: What are some of the differences we will encounter in the overall gameplay or controls compared to The Walking Dead? It feels like there is more action.

Herman: We start you off in an action sequence and there are more action scenes in this game. The majority of it is the same with the dialogue options. The action scene in the demo is a little different–there is more branching to choose how the fight unfolds.

Lenart: Yeah, we tried to take a lot of the mechanics from The Walking Dead and evolve that for a new franchise.  Choice is a really big thing in fights as well. Some people see two different places to go. It's funny watching everyone interpret, "Well if I go here… that's probably a nicer way to attack. But if I go here… not so  much."

Dingman: What about the irrelevant small touches throughout the game…  the one I noticed in the demo was the phone, and putting it on the hook before you go in the apartment.  It didn't make a difference but for some reason I felt like I had to hang-up that phone. Are those choices found throughout the game? With The Walking Dead it seemed like everything you touched had a major consequence or point.

Lenart:  Even with The Walking Dead Season 2, we definitely tried with all aspects, the colors, the environments, the storytelling, we really tried to involve everything… and one of those things is having those little interactive moments that are nice touches that make the world feel immersive.

Goodman: I'm glad you pointed that out… during the demo I got so excited and thought that hanging-up the phone would change everything. I was like "I'm gonna do this!" and be a paragon for life… and it didn't do anything. But I felt like my OCD was cured and I could enter the apartment completely free of guilt. (everyone laughs)

Dingman: What would you say is one thing you guys learn from The Walking Dead coming into this game?

Herman: I think one thing we learned from The Walking Dead is that the player felt like everything they did mattered. So we wanted to push that… everything you do matters, everything you say, people will respond to.

Goodman: "So and so will remember that…" I always question my own morals whenever I see that pop-up.

Dingman: So the Walking Dead Season II and the Wolf Among Us are coming out at the same time, but is there stuff you learned from working on this [the Wolf Among Us] that you're pulling back over to the Walking Dead?

Lenart: Yeah, there's definitely some of the action stuff that we took from the first season of The Walking Dead, evolved it for Fables and it worked really well, and after seeing that we're bringing it back over to it. Since we are all the same studio, we learn something new with every new project we do and that gets carried over to our other titles.

The Wolf Among Us is slated for release later in 2013 and will be available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.