With the current trend of game publishers recycling or resurrecting old licenses like DOOM or Command & Conquer, it was just a matter of time before someone got around to rebooting the classic Alone in the Dark franchise. Atari is planning to do just that with a new title -- Alone in the Dark: Near Death Investigation -- under development at Eden Games for the PC and Xbox 360. We had a chance to meet with the developers at a recent Atari pre-E3 press event, who gave us some insight as to what this new installment might have in store.

The game's hero should be a familiar name to fans of the series: Edward Carnby. However, for all intents and purposes, Near Death Investigation is a sequel to the original game, ignoring other installments like 2001's The New Nightmare. Set in a modern-day New York City, the story will center on Central Park, in an attempt to put a real face on a story dealing with the paranormal and the afterlife. As the developers told us, one of the key questions explored in the story is why this massive park exists in the middle of one of the world's largest cities, a mystery that should slowly unravel throughout the game.

As far as the actual gameplay, Eden is promising that it will be a little more action-oriented than what we've come to expect from survival-horror titles. At this point, the team went out of its way to acknowledge Resident Evil 4 as the first survival-horror title in a long while to push the genre forward, and are hoping to make a similarly evolutional leap with Near Death Investigation -- although not necessarily in the same direction.


Taking a cue from popular television series like 24 and Lost, Eden is planning to break Near Death Investigation up into episodes of 30-40 minutes each, each with its own narrative ebb and flow. The game is expected to span roughly ten episodes, complete with cliffhangers and "previously on" summaries at the start of each new chapter. While that might seem a little odd when you consider you don't have to wait a week for a new episode, there are plans to release additional episodes post-launch, where the "coming next" sequences might feel more in place.

Sadly, we didn't get to see any live gameplay during our conversation with Eden, but we did get to see a "test" room that showed off some of the game's real-time dynamic lighting and physics effects. As we've seen in other recent spookfests like F.E.A.R. or DOOM 3, this particular environment was sparsely lit, with a few beams of light casting shadows and creating a creepy atmosphere. Both the main character and the demon that eventually burst into the room were highly detailed, and if the entire game can live up to that level of quality, Alone in the Dark: Near Death Investigation could be one of the best-looking games of the year. An official trailer was just released for the game, and we'll have more on Edward Carnby's latest frightfest next week at E3.