Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of the new game will be its unusual narrative structure. As the developer explains it, Alone in the Dark will try to adopt the same kind of episodic, cliffhanger style popularized by TV shows like 24 and Lost, rather than trying to model itself after a feature-length motion picture, as many action games do. Specifically, the gameplay is being designed to be played in sessions of about 30 minutes (rather than in sequences that take hours and hours to sit through). Not only will these sessions let busy people pick up and play the game without missing a beat, but each session will also have its own concluding cinematic sequences, as well as "coming up next" sequences that tease the next part of the adventure. And when you return to the game later, you'll even be treated to brief plot summaries that will catch you up on what has happened so far, so you won't have to worry about forgetting where you left off.

Though we've seen only a little of the game in action, we can say it looks extremely impressive. We watched a brief real-time demonstration of the game that showed the highly detailed and haggard face of Edward Carnby, complete with beads of perspiration and tiny, bloody cuts. Carnby was shown standing opposite a hanging corpse in a dark corridor in various types of lighting, including low light and light filtered through a rotating fan that cast highly realistic shadows. According to Eden, the graphical look of the game is intended to mimic the expressiveness of professional photography by creating highly picturesque scenes. If the rest of the game can match the quality of what we've seen, the game will definitely make good use of next-generation game hardware.