Atari and Eden Games‘ upcoming entry in their long-running survival horror franchise, Alone in the Dark, will feature a relatively new gaming structure, similar to that of Valve/Steam’s SiN episodes. This new structure is based off of the television season formatting, which breaks apart the narrative into a dozen or so episodes that end on cliffhangers. According to today’s press release by Atari, Alone in the Dark will see this structure in innovative ways on the Xbox 360.

With approximately 30-40 minutes of gameplay comprising each episode, the structure of Alone in the Dark is adapted for an audience familiar with the hard-hitting, bite-size delivery of contemporary TV dramas, offering easy accessibility whether the player has hours to devote or only wants a quick TV-style fix.

Each time the player launches a saved game, the episode will begin with a video summary of the previous episode to quickly re-immerse the player in the story, removing the need to remember where they were or what they were doing. Every episode will close with a nail-biting cliff-hanger ending to rattle players’ nerves, and if the player is leaving the game, a video teaser of the next episode will play to leave them wanting more.

Atari ends the press release with a closing announcement attaching famous film director, Uwe Boll (BloodRayne, Alone in the Dark), to be contributing his talent to the episodic format of the upcoming game.

At this point in time, it is not clear whether or not the episodic structure will be tied into the Xbox Live Marketplace or be available from the beginning on the game’s disc, but it does raise some interesting questions. What are your thoughts on this new game structure?

Did I scare you with the Uwe Boll line? Don’t worry, it’s not true. It would be hilarious though. =)