Werewolves Within vs Werewolf: the VR game, the film and the party game

Werewolves Within vs Werewolf at a glance

What is the Werewolves Within game?

It's a VR take on the werewolf idea. Red Storm Entertainment developed it, Ubisoft published it, and it launched on December 6, 2016. Five to eight players sit in a circle as villagers of Gallowston. Somewhere in the circle is a werewolf in disguise, and the group talks until it votes on who.

Because everyone is in a headset, body language carries over in a small way: who you turn to, when you lean in, how long you hesitate. It's built for VR, so you need a headset to play. Store availability for older VR titles changes, so check your headset's store before planning a session around it.

How does it play differently from classic Werewolf?

The structure is the big change. Classic Werewolf runs night and day over many rounds, with players knocked out along the way and a narrator holding the secrets. Werewolves Within is a round of discussion that ends in a vote, and the software does the narrating.

Information works differently too. At a Werewolf table most players know only their own card, and the Seer is the main source of hard evidence. In the VR game, roles hand out small abilities and clues, so the talk leans towards comparing what people claim to know. That makes it quicker and more puzzle-like. The party game is slower, louder and more about reading faces.

Do you need to see the film?

No. The 2021 film borrows the name and the premise, a community trying to find the monster among them, and moves it to a modern town called Beaverfield. It doesn't teach any rules.

It does make a good warm-up. Put it on before game night and your guests arrive already suspicious of each other, which is the mood Werewolf runs on.

Where did the Werewolf party game come from?

It started as Mafia, created by Dmitry Davidoff, a psychology student at Moscow State University, in the mid-1980s. The werewolf theme came later and swapped gangsters for villagers, werewolves and a Seer, with the rules barely touched. Werewolf vs Mafia puts the two side by side, and the best social deduction games covers the wider family, published versions included.

Which should you play?

Pick Werewolves Within if you have a small group of friends who all own headsets and live in different places. Pick classic Werewolf for anything else: a party of 12, a family holiday, a classroom. It needs no hardware, costs nothing, and the only skill it asks for is talking. Nothing in VR beats watching a friend's face while they swear they're a villager.

How do you play classic Werewolf in person?

1. 1

   Deal secret roles. For 8 players, use 2 Werewolves, 1 Seer, 1 Doctor and 4 Villagers, as in the 8-player setup.

2. 2

   Night: everyone closes their eyes. The werewolves wake and silently pick a victim.

3. 3

   The Seer wakes and learns whether one player is a werewolf. The Doctor wakes and protects someone.

4. 4

   Dawn: the narrator announces who was eliminated, unless the Doctor saved them.

5. 5

   Day: argue, accuse, then vote someone out.

6. 6

   Repeat until the werewolves are gone, or they equal the villagers.

Full rules are in how to play Werewolf. If nobody wants to sit out as narrator, Werewolf Narrator does the job on one phone in a browser, free: it deals roles as the phone is passed round, a recorded voice runs each night, and it announces deaths, times the day and checks for a win, for 5 to 18 players.