Devin Shatsky on Downpour’s Alan Wake Comparison

Konami released a few new screenshots of upcoming Silent Hill: Downpour last week, and the internet went ablaze with Alan Wake comparisons. We saw these comparisons awhile back with the E3 trailer and even then we could not fully agree. Horror games with trees mean Alan Wake? Many seem to forget that past Silent Hill games gave us glimpses of the outer forests.
While Alan Wake was a great game, it did not copyright video game forests. The last screens we saw were from an early portion in the game. Murphy is still on his way to the town, and it’s safe to say that the otherworld is far from consuming reality; there’s sunlight and no fog.
Devin Shastky, producer behind Downpour got back to us in response to this comparison.

"I think it’s a bit odd for anyone who hasn’t even seen the game to be drawing comparisons to any other games. They can only judge from the screenshots they’ve seen, so I don’t blame them. If they think we are looking “Alan Wake-ish” just because we have a forest area in part of the game, then so be it. But it could easily be said that Alan Wake ripped off SH in a number of ways with the look and feel of their entire game. Granted, all games evolve from each other in some capacity, so I think its narrow minded to think like that.
I would like to point out we have WAY more variety of environments in Downpour than Alan Wake does, so I feel very comfortable that the comparisons will end at these forest shots. There are a multitude of other environments in Downpour that people will be hard-pressed to compare to ANY other games, we have a very unique variety of landscapes and interiors, and I think the fans will be very pleased with the job Vatra is doing on our environments. The forest is just a drop in the bucket (pun intended) of where we take the player in this game."

We think that there’s just a bit of ignorance going about, and no one can justify calling foul from a few screenshots of one type of in-game location. Perhaps people already forgot about the screenshots from the town released a few months ago. Those gave us an in depth look at a new style to the classic town that we know and love. If anything, Alan Wake‘s atmosphere and style was influenced by games like Silent Hill.