I Am Alive

I Am Alive is a 2012 action-adventure survival game set in a post-apocalyptic world. Developed by Ubisoft Shanghai and published by Ubisoft, it was released for Xbox 360 (via Xbox Live Arcade) in March 2012, for PlayStation 3 (via the PlayStation Network) in April, and for Windows (via Steam and UPlay) in September.

The game takes place one year after "The Event", a cataclysmic disaster that has wiped out most of humanity and reduced cities to rubble. The unnamed protagonist returns to his home in the fictional city of Haventon looking for his wife and daughter. He later encounters a young girl looking for her lost mother, and the protagonist vows to help find her.

I Am Alive was initially in development by Darkworks from 2005 to 2009, and was conceived as a first-person game called Alive. It was postponed and re-announced multiple times over its seven-year development cycle. Ubisoft Shanghai restarted development from scratch until its completion in 2012, keeping only the original pitch and the gameplay designs, minus the combat. Inspired by films such as The Road and The Book of Eli, the developers wanted players to experience the emotions and moral quandaries of choosing who lives and who dies. The scope of the game was originally planned as a full retail release, but was released as a digital-only title.

I Am Alive received mixed reviews. Praise was directed at its tone, graphics, combat, climbing mechanics, and the moral choices presented in gameplay. Criticisms tended to focus on the combat and intimidation system as repetitive and undeveloped. The game topped the charts for Xbox Live and PlayStation Network for several weeks after its release, and became one of the top-ten selling games of 2012 on both networks.