We've got the latest update on Atari's upcoming iteration of Alone in the Dark (Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360). In the latest developer diary post, they talked about their game engine and how it's becoming an integral tool of game design. To boot, eight new screenshots were released to send chills up our spines.

According to Atari, their engine was designed in such a way that ideas could be translated quickly into sounds and pixels to be tested. As they put it, parts of the game could be made to fit like Lego blocks to try and see which combinations work best.

"How we managed to balance the innovation with fun in the game is by working nights (a lot) and the key word is iteration," writes Atari. "You don’t have any other method. If something was never done before you need to build it, test it, see what goes well, what goes wrong, and you need to improve it and improve it, test it, improve it."

They also explained again why they chose Central Park as the backdrop for the latest scare-fare. "What we want with Central Park is to give to the player some realistic environments to put all the extraordinary things in perspective," wrote Atari's design team.

"If you have a realistic environment everything not normal seems very, very weird," they added. "If you are in a completely weird environment the weirdness is normal, so what we want is to use the park to give the perspective on all the paranormal activity."

Sounds very promising. The Alone in the Dark series is among the scariest survival horror franchises ever made, and we hope it lives up to the hype. In any case, check out the pictures below and tell us what you think.