Wow, this is great news! Those images look great, very nice and scary design especially on the one with the hanging chains and strange machine in the center. I'm glad that you plan on creating a much more open game world, it's something I wished for when playing the Penumbra games. It will be fun exploring an old castle with more than one direction to go in. I think a more open game play and story telling is the way of the future in gaming. Also, I hope you guys stay with the Lovecraft inspired type of horror as in Penumbra, I'm a big fan of his novels.
Will this still keep the adventure/puzzle aspects of the Penumbra games?
If so, will there still be a focus on physics based puzzles? Harder puzzles I hope?
Good luck on the game, I don't think you'll disappoint your fans.