It’s the ultimate battle between werewolves and human supremacists, and your werewolf pack is caught in the middle of a four-way fight!

Werewolves 3: Evolution’s End is the third installment of Jeffrey Dean’s acclaimed “Claw, Shadow, and Sage” series, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based, 550,000 words and hundreds of choices, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination. Choice of Games editor Mary Duffy dat down to talk with Jeffrey about the world of Werewolves.

Werewolves 3: Evolution’s End will be available on Thursday, November 14th. You can wishlist it on Steam in advance of its release—it really helps!

It’s been four years since we had Werewolves 2: Pack Mentality and I know we couldn’t be more excited for Evolution’s End, the third installment of the “Claw, Shadow, and Sage” series. Tell me all about what we can expect in this game.

It’s been quite a trip! In the immortal words of the venerable master, Hideo Kojima: “Kept you waiting, huh?”

Now that that’s out of my system, Evolution’s End continues the events of Werewolves 2: Pack Mentality right where they left off, exploring characters and mysteries previously left unanswered. We’ll experience the endgame of the mysterious scientist Maker, and what could very well be a final battle between the main character and the former Colonel, Elan Williams. Depending on the player’s choices, there are many possible deaths to brace yourself for by the end.

I’ve also written enough romance content to fill an actual novel. Each of the five romanceable characters has several unique scenes associated with them and hundreds of lines of dialogue. Warning: It gets spicy!

Some characters who were missed in Werewolves 2 make their return here as well, and I’ll enjoy seeing readers’ reactions to it!

What was the biggest challenge in writing this third part?

The biggest challenge was definitely a little gremlin of mine called ‘scope creep,’ which is easy to get caught up in when you have pre-established characters who all have their own desires and goals.

I wanted to put everything into this installment and I got more than a little carried away over time. The word count for this monster is almost twice that of Werewolves 2–comparable to my other game, Vampire the Masquerade: Parliament of Knives. I wanted to explore every aspect of the story that I could, and that resulted in a longer development period. Gods bless the patience of my editor, Jason!

So, I had to balance the responsibility of reeling in my ambitions to make sure I get the game out to the readers who have been waiting (patiently!) to continue their story from book 2. My partner suggested that I’d either have to invent a time machine or clone myself in order to write down all the ideas I’ve discussed for this game over the last two years of development. I’m still working on the cloning thing. Any day now… (I should have started with the time machine…)

Has it been hard to hold all the pieces of two other games in your head (and your code!) coming into this final stretch?

Not particularly. The hard part wasn’t so much the number of pieces, but shifting gears from Vampire: the Masquerade back to Werewolves. The language used is different and I wanted to make sure there wasn’t an accidental tonal shift in the writing from book 2 to book 3 in the Werewolves series. Dialogue in particular is very different in Werewolves than it is in Vampire: The Masquerade, so I spent some time just writing out conversations between main characters, noting how they talk, etc… Even the main character’s observations are written differently than the MC in Parliament of Knives.

There are a lot of other elements to consider than tone as well, like making sure that I write “humans” instead of “mortals,” that kind of thing. That may sound silly, but when you’ve spent two years writing one way for a franchise, it gets ingrained in your style and it requires a manual shift in one’s brain space.

It took me around two months to fully immerse myself into this world again, and I had to re-read my own Werewolf games multiple times to get myself in the heads of the characters. What helped in this process was writing an extensive interactive recap for returning players. Putting together all the important plotlines and permutations for returning players got most of it sorted in my head right off that bat. Once I was there, it flowed fairly easily.

What do you think will surprise fans of this series the most about Evolution’s End?

There are several surprises in store! I think the biggest one is the return to a setting that most readers probably expected they’d seen the last of and it probably isn’t the first one that comes to mind. Both Maker and Williams have some interesting tricks up their sleeves for the pack, and it will be up to the player to overcome them or even possibly benefit from them if they can put their morals aside.

Oh, and there’s also some significant hints regarding the origins of the modern incarnation of the werewolf race and how they’ve been harnessed and manipulated by secretive government projects over the last century. If you like diving into the lore, there are some real treats in store!

Do you have thoughts about additional stories set in this world?

Absolutely! I had a few people ask me this a while back on the official CoG Reddit. Originally, Evolution’s End was intended to be the final book in the series, and while it largely wraps up several major plot lines in what I feel is a satisfying way, there are still areas to explore that are very relevant to the main character’s life.

Long story short, I have every intention to bring a fourth installment of the series to readers if the demand is there.

In the meantime, I’m actually writing a series of short stories set in the “Claw, Shadow, and Sage” world, and it’s been fun to explore the story from various perspectives outside the main character’s head.

What are you working on outside of interactive fiction?

I’ve put all other projects on hold while I was scrabbling to finish Evolution’s End, but earlier in the year I spent time writing the short stories I mentioned, including the story of Colonel Williams, what happened to Haken between Werewolves 1 and 3, and a series of shorts from the perspectives of Dena and Jolon’s parents. I plan to work on more of these in the future, and possibly start a Patreon to fund their creation if readers are interested in that sort of thing!

I’ve also been working on an (unofficial) prequel novel to Parliament of Knives that follows Sheriff Qui’s arrival in Ottawa during the 1970s. Qui meets and falls in love with his ghoul, Sam, and forges an alliance with Arundel before he was Prince. That’s been an absolute blast to write. Once it’s finished, I intend to make it available for free.

Last but not least, I’ve been outlining some interesting ideas I have for a novel in the LitRPG genre, since I’ve been devouring that type of book lately and would love to take a stab at making one of my own. It’s a bit out of my wheelhouse (No vampires? No werewolves? What?!?) but sometimes it’s exciting to take on something new every so often. Speaking of projects, I’d better get back to work on that time machine or I’ll never get all this writing done! Can’t wait to see what everyone thinks of Evolution’s End this November!