I Am Alive was unveiled by Ubisoft at last year's E3 trade show through one pretty short trailer telling the story of a man running through what seemed to be a city heavily damaged by a natural disaster. Then, the company went into information blackout mode and did not tell players anything about the title, leading to a lot of rumors, one of the more prominent of them saying that Jade Raymond, who gained fame as a producer working on Assassin's Creed, would lead the development team.

Now, GamesTM magazine has an interesting preview of the game and one of the big reveals is the fact that Jade Raymond is actually not involved at all in the project, with the team being led by Alexis Goddard, who is quite enthusiastic about what I Am Alive can achieve.

The inspirations for the game are many and very well known to gamers. It seems that bits and pieces will be borrowed from Armageddon, Titanic, Cloverfield, Jericho, and Lost, with some from I Am Legend, War of the Worlds and The Day After Tomorrow thrown in for good measure. Still, the plot itself will be highly original, focusing on the quest of one man, Adam Collins, to survive an earthquake, find his girlfriend and other survivors. Alexis Goddard says that “Disaster has been a recurring theme for entertainment since the beginning of time.”

It seems that the concept of survival will be central to the gameplay. Items will be scarce and getting what the character requires to survive will be the main challenge. There will be some weapons available, mostly scavenged, but little ammunition to use. Still, the game will have a deep social interaction engine allowing tactics that usually do not appear, like intimidation and coercion.

I Am Alive sounds good from this initial preview, but it will be interesting to see whether Ubisoft will really implement all the gutsy concepts it's talking about.

Watch the trailer released at E3: