It Lives: I Am Alive Suddenly Launches

I Am Alive's road to PC has been simple, uncomplicated, and predictable in the same way as a rollercoaster built atop a black hole. First the game proper was allegedly dead and buried, then it wasn't coming to PC at all and we were apparently just "bitching" for the sake of it, then we got an apology and eventual release date, and now - without any real warning - the monochromatic, melodramatic apocalypse survivor has leaped forward a week on the release schedule. I mean, I'm not complaining or anything, but I didn't even have time to roll out the black-and-white red carpet. Well, I suppose a new trailer will have to do for now.

So yeah, it should be available for download on Steam any second now. And that's fairly exciting, seeing as - when it released on console - it was deemed generally enjoyable, suffocatingly atmospheric, and occasionally shocking. It's also apparently a survival game with actual, you know, survival elements (for instance, a finite pool of stamina that'll run bone dry and kill you if you don't cool the Uncharted climbing antics every once in a while), so that's nice.

Given recent events, I Am Alive also strikes me as an oddly fitting summary of, well, Ubisoft's entire relationship with PC gaming. I mean, it went from being a soapbox atop which its creator insulted PC gamers to a DRM-free early (at least, relative to its original schedule) release. And while I certainly wouldn't say Ubisoft's un-burned all our bridges just yet, this is a form of progress. I'm not sure it'll ever fully apologize for giving our platform of choice the cold shoulder for years, but honestly, I only care about that kind of thing up to a certain point. So long as it can give us releases that are 1) high quality, 2) not mystifyingly delayed, and 3) decently ported, I imagine my anger will smolder into healthy skepticism. And honestly, when dealing with giant videogame mega-corporations, I think that's how things should be.