It turns out us snooty critics aren't the only ones who weren't all that jazzed about the fifth Alone in the Dark game. Darkworks prez Antoine Villette, whose company made the fourth Alone in the Dark, thinks the series needs some big changes if it's going to continue.

"Now I think that with this franchise, if Atari wants to do something [further], it has to be a major step towards other things: perhaps other platforms, other game systems, other gameplay," Villete said in an interview with VG247. He goes on to say that the next Alone in the Dark game should "move away from what has become the classical survival horror game with Resident Evil, Biohazard, and let it be Alone in the Dark".

Alone in the Dark has, like Resident Evil, slowly become more and more of a shooter over time. With the adventure genre being a twitching corpse and all, it's not that surprising these two series would move away from the cerebral, puzzle gameplay of their early installments. Still, Alone in the Dark needs to find a way to differentiate itself from RE. They could start by never making another shitty film adaptation.

It's not clear if any developer will get a chance to breath new life into the series, though. The latest game sold over a million copies worldwide in about a month with the PS3 version still on its way but judging by the marketing blitz, Atari's expectations were much higher. Furthermore, the publisher's head honcho Phil Harrison told VG247 this May that they were unlikely to greenlight any more linear, single-player-only games - which may mean no more AITD are planned. Or maybe they're devising ways to add online functionality to the next installment?