Ubisoft Shanghai's upcoming survival game I Am Alive is a weighty piece of work. While many games with an M rating appeal to the purile, all the footage and information I've gotten about I Am Alive indicates that it's made far sterner stuff. Finding a way to defend your scraps of food against three hungry, depraved earthquake survivors with little to no weaponry or having to walk on helplessly as a man sexually abuses his female captive in public sounds a lot more like true horror than zombies and mutants. These are the kinds of situations players will be dropped into this Spring when the game hit's the PSN.

Thankfully it appears that the person handling the music for the game, Jeff Broadbent, has a real grasp on the game's thematic depth and is looking to put together a score that captures the very human struggle of the protagonist as well as the setting of devastation around him.

"Creating the score for I Am Alive was an exciting undertaking," he said. "The unique nature of the game allowed for a very creative and experimental approach to scoring.

The story revolves around an anonymous man wandering what remains of Chicago after a 10.3 scale earthquake. While searching for his wife and daughter, he meets a variety of survivors, who the player can choose to help, ignore, or even kill for supplies.

"A sense of environmental desolation was essential in crafting the aural landscapes of I Am Alive. Because of this, the music often uses ethereal and sound-design inspired approaches, blending organic and synthetic elements to create the sonic imagery of devastation and abandonment within a crumbling city. The quest of our unnamed protagonist...also allowed for the use of poignant emotional themes and motifs."

It's always great to get a bit of insight into the minds of the people who create the games we play, especially when they take it as seriously as it deserves to be taken.

Be sure to stay tuned for an official release date as well as other news on I Am Alive as it breaks.