All you bitchin’ PC gamers are finally going to get a shot at Ubisoft’s survival-quest I Am Alive.
Remember that guy who said last year that a PC port of I Am Alive probably wouldn’t be worth the effort, because in spite of all the “bitching” PC gamers do they were unlikely actually buy the game? We’re finally going to get the chance to find out if he was right, because Ubisoft has confirmed that the game is on its way to the PC.
I Am Alive is set a year after a cataclysmic event that left the world in ruins. Players will step into the role of a survivor who faces threats from both the environment and other humans as he struggles to find his wife and daughter amidst the devastation. The PC version of the game has been enhanced with improved visuals and two new game modes: “Easy,” which allows infinite retries and a “smoother introduction” to the game, and “Replay,” which lets players go back and play through previous levels in order to uncover missed secrets.
I love the concept of I Am Alive, but I’ve been told by People Who Know that the execution was a bit rough around the edges, with lots of bugs and clunky controls. Hopefully that’s been cleaned up for the PC release, but I also find myself wondering if, by leaving it for so long, Ubisoft is setting the port up for failure. The whole “Ubisoft hates PC” thing is a little overdone at this point, but given the creative director’s statement about the number of unit sales needed to make a PC release worthwhile, I do wonder why Ubi waited so long to make it happen and hasn’t put more of an effort into differentiating the PC edition from the earlier console versions.
On the other hand, I Am Alive on PC will be a digital-only release and sell for just $15, so maybe it’ll attract some decent numbers – perhaps even enough to convince the publisher to go with simultaneous console and PC launches in the future. Hey, dare to dream, right? I Am Alive arrives on the PC via Steam, UbiShop and other fine digital distributors on September 13.
