The demo showed one of the early missions in the game and found our troubled lead starting to explore his surroundings. The game's interface is being kept simple, with a task bar in the lower left-hand corner of the screen displaying your current mission in handwritten font. For the demo, Alan was tasked with going to a mountainside cabin. Alan spoke with a gas station employee and got a key before heading out to the cabin, which was near the charmingly named Cauldron Lake (we're sure it's a fun, happy place). As Alan drove, his inner monologue served as commentary on his situation--a gameplay element that occurred several times in the demo. Not long after he starts his drive to the cabin, Alan encounters a hitchhiker who he picks up (we'll say right now we're a little concerned that Alan might not be the brightest lead character we've ever seen in a video game). During the drive, the situation takes a turn for the creepy, as Alan chats up his passenger with a fun fact: The events taking place are reminiscent of a hitchhiker scene in Alan's book where the fictional hitchhiker is killed. A little later in the ride the pair come across a car wreck. While Alan leaves the car to check out the busted vehicle, a truck zips by and hits his car head on, apparently killing the hitchhiker. A few disoriented moments later, Alan drops like a sack of potatoes.

We were particularly impressed by the game's visual qualities, immediately evident as the demoer unlocked the camera to fly all around the environment. The game sports many of the bells and whistles that we've come to expect from so-called next-gen games, including a liberal helping of high dynamic range lighting and stunning water effects. We zoomed over to a dam where we were treated to the sun playing across the water, and the demoer showed us the day and night cycle, as well as the dynamic weather system that will make it rain or bring out the sun at any time. Finally, we headed over to the plains to check out a tornado that dynamically tore apart the environment, yanking roofs off of houses and lifting cars high into the air before raining debris down around our hero. Impressive stuff, indeed.