Alone in the Dark

The player can switch between first- and third-person perspectives at any point in the gameplay after the opening sequence and except for a few specific situations where you need the camera to do a certain thing to make the gameplay efficient for the player. For example, when you're hanging on a rope the camera is automatically in third-person to give you the full context of what's going on, while on the other hand all shooting is done exclusively in FPS view. That means if you're hanging on a rope and you want to shoot it switches from third- to first-person view while you're shooting, then back to third-person. Overall, we wanted to give the player the camera most adapted to the situation and not be constrained by typically fixed cameras in given situations.

The PS2 and Wii games are similar in their approach although they were developed based on the same initial design that we created rather than being made hand in hand with the Xbox 360, PC and PS3 versions so there are differences. I can't say much about how the game is in the end on PS2 and Wii, but logically on the Wii, the control system is perfectly adapted to the game concept, whether it be the control of the hero, or the way he interacts with the environment, like for example the manipulation of objects.

There is an Xbox Live demo planned for around the launch of the game but no final date is set at this time.

We certainly hope so! From our side, it's something we'd love to do and there's already plenty of ideas within the team of where we could take the series next.

The game supports a maximum resolution of 720p on both PS3 and Xbox 360. Screen-tearing is linked mainly to frame rate issues and we encountered some problems with it earlier on in the development process, but we're now optimising the game and we don't expect to have this problem in the end.

The pressure we feel is more about delivering a game that lives up to the legacy of the very first Alone in the Dark, so that means it needs to innovate, and innovate successfully in a way that gives gamers a really exciting new experience. If we achieve that and the other pieces of the puzzle that Atari is working on fall into place, then I think it will sell a lot of copies. Our ambition is to create a new benchmark for action-adventure games.

If there's one thing, I think it will be the level of interaction with the objects and the environment. The player will have new ways to interact with the world that he has not experienced before, such as the ability to pick up anything they see and instinctively know how it's going to behave and respond. There is no one single use of an object; rather you can use it in different contexts and combine it with other objects to create new weapons. Or you can manipulate it to have a real feeling of control of the object itself, a feeling that lets you unravel situations in a new way or feel the impact on enemies during combat. Once you've tried it, you won't want to go back.