Sega announced Condemned, a suspense-filled, first-person psychological thriller game developed exclusively for the next generation of game consoles and the PC. Developed by Monolith Productions, the game allows players to experience an unnatural level of psychological tension as they use their instincts, forensic tools, and melee combat to track serial killers and bring them to justice. Gamers will play as Ethan Thomas, an FBI agent in the Serial Crimes Unit (SCU), whose pursuit of relentless serial killers leads him through detailed urban environments filled with deadly sociopaths who lurk on the periphery of humanity.

SEGA expects Condemned to engage the game player with visceral, in-your-face, urban combat and an unparalleled level of unpredictability, said Scott A. Steinberg, vice president of entertainment marketing, SEGA of America. The atmospheric tension and cinematic qualities of Condemned offer consumers the rich experience of a psychological thriller; something that has not been accomplished on previous hardware platforms.

New leaps in technology are allowing our teams to create immersive game environments that are incredibly realistic, said Samantha Ryan, CEO of Monolith Productions. Monolith's goal with Condemned, is to combine a disturbing atmosphere with realistic physics, devious AI, and a sophisticated combat system.

Condemned, the first next-generation console and PC game announced by SEGA, is slated to ship in Winter 2005. If we are to judge by SEGAs use of the plural consoles in the first paragraph of this story, we should expect to see the game appear on both XBox 2 and PS3 with Nintendo's Revolution being just an outsider for the time being.