I Am Alive digital-only report was a "joke"

French site JeuxVideo's confirmed that a widespread report it originated claiming that I Am Alive was to come out this year as a digital-only title was a "joke".

Ubisoft producer Jade Raymond has apparently now said that, while the company had nothing to do with the story, it wants to make it clear it isn't true. This is according to JeuxVideo, so we have no idea whether or not this is fact or fiction. Based on a phone call we've just had, we'd err towards the latter.

Ubisoft issued a statement in the wake of the story breaking last Tuesday, saying it had “not recently announced anything for I Am Alive,” and has “nothing official to announce at this time”.

The game's site went offline while all this happened, fuelling speculation Ubi was about to announce an update on the mysterious action game.

The story originated from a JeuxVideo web-TV programme called Warpzone, in which a source claims to have received the information from Jade Raymond herself.

"Obviously, anyone who has watched Warpzone immediately understood it was an unimportant joke," said JeuxVideo today.

The quote was picked up by a NeoGAF poster, and the rest is history.

I Am Alive was first revealed as a Darkworks project at E3 2008, and was slated for release in 2009. Ubisoft Shanghai later took over the game, with Ubisoft promising in 2010 to “totally” re-engineer the product.

The first glimpse of I Am Alive in two years came last June in the form of a trailer, which promised a spring 2011 release.