I Am Alive Message Board older than one year ago

To give you an idea of how long it's been since we've heard anything of substance about Ubisoft's post-apocalyptic survival action game I Am Alive, the last news story we have on the site pertaining to the title is from January 2009. And it was written by Vinny.

Help! I'm still alive! No, really! Australia said so!

Since that, what little news has leaked out around the web about the game has mostly had to do with its troubled development cycle. Original developer Darkworks was yanked from the project last year, with Ubisoft Shanghai taking over and effectively rebooting the title from scratch. At last word, the title was set to move from a full retail product to a downloadable title for Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network. But even that word was quite some time ago, and as E3 came and went with no updates on the game, the world simply assumed that it had gone the way of the dodo. And Beyond Good & Evil 2.

So color us surprised when news sprang forth this morning of a rating for I Am Alive by the Australian ratings board. Aussie ratings tend to come a lot earlier than ESRB ratings, so this doesn't mean the game is necessarily finished, but if it's been submitted for a rating (it was rated 15, by the way), that means that development continues, and that some manner of light at the end of the long tunnel can be seen.

The 15 rating comes primarily from a cautioning of "strong violence," which fits with the game's theme of survival amid a massive earthquake in the city of Chicago. At last check, the game was designed to be a fight to escape the city amid massive water shortages, roving gangs of looters, and continued destruction as the city collapses around you. But considering how long it's been since we last heard anything, for all we know, the game might have morphed into some kind of post-apocalyptic dating sim.

I guess we'll all find out together when Ubisoft finally gets around to showing this latest incarnation of I Am Alive to the world.

As hard as it may be to still believe that Ubisoft's long-ago announced and rarely heard from projects Beyond Good & Evil 2 (May 2008) and I Am Alive (July 2008) are still in the works, Ubisoft continues to insist they haven't been canceled. After the publisher noted the (rather costly) "termination of certain projects" in its fiscal year earnings report yesterday, Eurogamer followed up with Ubisoft to find out whether the two aforementioned titles were among the canned games.

"Terminated projects were unannounced projects," a representative told the site, implying that BG&E 2 and I Am Alive are still in production. "We have nothing new to report on those two titles for the moment," the rep added.

We can't say that Ubisoft proper has ever had anything to report on BG&E 2 -- we last heard from creator Michel Ancel in June 2010 that a small team was plugging away on it. As for I Am Alive, it was once set to launch in Ubisoft's fiscal 2011-12 release window (April 2011 - March 2012). So, uh, any day now!Ubisoft's canceled projects were unannounced, not I Am Alive nor BG&E 2

We're going to ask you to remember all the way back to last week, when we reported on a rumor that the long-in-development (and optimistically titled) I Am Alive was, in fact, still alive but would only see release on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. Nearly a full week after that story crawled out of the rubble we know as the internet, and a week after Ubi said that it had "not recently announced anything for I Am Alive" and, in case it wasn't totally clear, it has "nothing official to announce at this time," we have an update from the source of the rumor.

The French-language video show Warpzone is a part of French gaming site JeuxVideo, which said, "Obviously, anyone who has watched Warpzone immediately understood it was an unimportant joke." It was seemingly so unimportant that they waited until now to let everyone know! As for the fate of I Am Alive, Ubisoft's unwillingness to confirm whether or not the title is a retail game or a downloadable game, or really to talk about it at all, isn't filling us with hope.

Ubisoft would be hard-pressed to make a more ironic title for its oft-delayed I Am Alive. However, this impressive conceptual teaser released at E3 definitely piques our interest. If the trailer's suggested Spring 2011 release holds true, we're bound to see more of the game soon -- which will only invite even more jokes from the Joystiq staff.

#rumor Ubisoft's I Am Alive has long been a vapourware suspect, the length of time since we last heard anything about it leading some to suspect it had ended up on the development scrapheap. But now there's this trailer... More »

My eager and regularly disappointed followers, I am becoming less saddened as the days between our union grow further still. Here, within the ethereal concepts in which I am trapped, I am no longer certain of my existence. They say, I don't look like myself anymore. Master Yves says that I am "totally re-engineered" ... that I have come to use "the Splinter Cell engine" -- but how should I know? How should anyone know? I am not like the others; and I make no claim to being important or "major," as it is said. My maker has cast me out of its fiscal 2010-11 release calendar. I am alone. But I am okay with that. Yours in perpetuity, I Am Alive

Ubisoft's survival title not coming this year.