Quote:"We intend to give players a lot of freedom in our upcoming game", explains Thomas Grip, co-founder and lead programmer at Frictional Games. "Instead of following a laid out route we want players to choose for themselves how they want to progress and how deep they want explore various aspects of the game world"
The two goals of deep atmosphere and game freedom are somewhat contradictory. Also as said above, the job is so much harder for developers and, most importantly, for the story writer. I never found games trying to act like real world with lots of freedom very catching. Players imagination has the ability to compensate for linearity. It works in literature.
Either way can't wait to see how you guys get on and lay down my hands on your new title.