The Wolf Among Us Episode 1: Faith Review (PC)

excellent
key review info
  • Game: The Wolf Among Us Episode 1: Faith
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: Yes  
  • Reviewed on:
The Wolf Among Us Episode 1: Faith review on PC

Telltale Games amazed fans with last year's The Walking Dead, a series of five downloadable episodes that told a great story set in the universe of the comic book series.

Now, the studio wants to repeat that performance with The Wolf Among Us, a similar set of five episodes that are now based on the Fables series of comics books.

The first episode, Faith, has just appeared, and it promises to introduce a whole new property to gamers from around the world, while bringing familiar elements like choices, intense dialogs, and gripping action scenes.

Can Telltale repeat its stellar performance or should the Wolf stay in hiding? Let's find out.

Review image
Review image
You're the Big Bad Wolf ...
... from the classic fable

The Fables series of comic books is quite extensive, but The Wolf Among Us doesn't require any prerequisite knowledge, as it explains the core concept right at the beginning. Basically, characters from fairy tales have been exiled into the real world and, through the use of magic, can live alongside humans (aka mundys) in New York City.

You play as Bigby Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf, who's the sheriff of Fabletown, the small community of Fable characters. These include illustrious members like Snow White, Beauty, or Beast, but also less famous ones like Toad from The Wind in the Willows.

The story is a prequel, meaning both new fans and veterans will have something to enjoy, and it manages to walk a fine line between offering information about the universe and not confusing players with too many details.

As opposed to the adventure in The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us delivers an experienced based more on cop thrillers, as Bigby needs to investigate a series of crimes that are rocking the foundations of Fabletown.

Besides going to crime scenes, analyzing clues, and getting into conversations with persons of interest, the game also shines through Bigby's own separate plot. As you can imagine, the Big Bad Wolf doesn't have the best of reputations among the community, even if his past crimes have been forgiven and he's now in charge of keeping the denizens safe.

Choices are many and frequent, ranging from interacting with certain objects, to deciding the course of action during the investigation or even making split-second reactions in terms of Bigby's behavior.

The action sequences in The Wolf Among Us are much more intense, or at least that's how they seem, when compared to The Walking Dead, and a bit easier to progress through, as the button prompts are much clearer and easier to perform.

The actual quick time events are relatively forgiving, but Bigby can only withstand a certain amount of punishment, so you'll have to certainly work hard to make sure he gets out of violent encounters alive.

The game handles really well on the PC, without any sort of long loading times, so it seems that Telltale has managed to overcome the technical issues it encountered with The Walking Dead, which was prone to slowdowns from time to time.

The Wolf Among Us focuses a lot on its story and this means that, at least in this first episode, there aren't a lot of pure gameplay sequences, as they mostly relate to interacting with different objects in various scenes, and with keeping a conversation going in order to figure out if a character is lying.

In terms of visuals, while the same cel-shaded style seen in The Walking Dead is present here, the colors are much more vibrant than the washed out hues seen in the previous project from Telltale. The characters and environments look really good and even the interface has plenty of attractive elements.

The soundtrack isn't that great, however, but it manages to recover with the voice acting, which feels really impressive and manages to make players take seriously characters like a real-life frog or a pig during dialog sections.

Review image
Review image
Make tough choices ...
... and survive fights

Conclusion

The Wolf Among Us is a great start to what seems to be another brilliant episodic series from Telltale Games. While there isn't a lot of pure gameplay, the story manages to fill the void and will delight both new fans and Fables veterans.

Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
story 10
gameplay 9
concept 9
graphics 9
audio 8
multiplayer 0
final rating 9
Editor's review
excellent
 
NEXT REVIEW: Eleusis