Silent Hill: Downpour producer responds to the Alan Wakusations

by Alexander Sliwinski on Apr 20th 2011 1:00PM

Konami released some Silent Hill: Downpour screenshots last week with a heavy Alan Wake vibe. Defending them, producer Devin Shatsky told HellsDescent, "It could easily be said that Alan Wake ripped off [Silent Hill] 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," Shatsky continued. "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 game. We have a very unique variety of landscapes and interiors."

Alan Wake doesn't have a trademark on spooky Pacific Northwest forests, this is true. However, for fun: Guess which game the slightly altered picture above originates from? (Find the answer after the break.)

Answer: Silent Hill: Downpour; source image

Silent Hill: Downpour (4/15/11)

Source: Helldescent

Tags: defense, devin-shatsky, Konami, microsoft, playstation, ps3, silent-hill-downpour, xbox

Reader Comments (84)

Silent Wake.
Alan Hill.

@CaptainProtonX

Silent Alan

@Uncle Jesse

Silent! Alan Hill, (a)wake!!!!!!!!!

@CaptainProtonX

Super Silent Hill 2: Alan Wake Edition

@CaptainProtonX
congrats all of you. You killed the joke.

@SEGA Scream

Hahahaha! That's good. :)

@CaptainProtonX

Silent Wake is a creepy, excellent game for a new title.

@CaptainProtonX

Alan Hill: BWAAAAAAHHH!!!

@CaptainProtonX Bobby Hill is a good title I tell you what.

This guy sounds like a massive douche, you'd never catch the old Japanese production teams aggressively defending their games and slagging off another in the process, I dont want him making my silent hill :(

@Brained

true. the sad part is that he's completely talking out of his ass. downpour, based off those screenshots, doesn't have "way more environments" than wake, not even close. i'm amazed at how similar they look, though to be honest, given this guys shitty attitude, i'd much rather support alan wake.

"I feel very comfortable that the comparisons will end at these forest shots." haha, riiight. because, y'know, you never spent time running around in the forest in alan wake.

@Brained

It's his game and his work. Of course he wants to defend it. If someone started claiming that you copied another game, what would you do? It's not like he's going to say, "Yeah, totally. Alan Wake was awesome and we just decided to scrap what we had and copy that."

@Liquidfingers He's saying the similarities end at the woods, once you get into the town the game turns into a more Silent Hill looking game, if you actually went to Hell Descent and read the quote, you'd notice he says that he doesn't blame people for thinking they look similar, but the writer of the article probably decided the full quote didn't fit his agenda.

@Liquidfingers

wut?

@Uncle Jesse I'd rather he didn't say anything. This comes off as looking petty and defensive, and it's also making it into a bigger thing than it is. If there are more varied environments, just release some screenshots of them sometime. He doesn't have to say "Hey, but Alan Wake ripped us off too!"

@Chewy2nd

Yeah, the full statement has a completely different feel. I learned a long time ago when reading blogs to always check the source when dealing with quotes like this.

@Uncle Jesse
Yea I understand that but the way he defends it seems really childish and unprofessional, i mean phrases like;

"ripped off ." and "I would like to point out we have way more variety of environments in Downpour than Alan Wake does,"

I mean "way more variety of environments" was that really necessary to say? You can defend your own work without belittling some elses, it just seems like hes desperately trying to deny it way too much.

@Chewy2nd
It's fairly obvious the writer has something against the game too. Check out his past post on Silent Hill where with bold letters he spells out "Alan Wake".
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/15/a-trickle-of-silent-hill-downpour-screens/

@The Aquacharger
Also "Alan Wake doesn't have a trademark on spooky Pacific Northwest forests, this is true..." is a rip off of the original source's joke "While Alan Wake was a great game, it did not copyright video game forests."

Considering how 'meh' Silent Hill has been, for quite awhile now, I'd consider it an honor to be compared to something as awesome as Alan Wake.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

*obligatory post bringing up Shattered Memories*

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Yeah, But lets hope it is actually a horror game instead of the action game Alan Wake turned in to.

@LEONLEONLEON
Alan Wake was hardly an action game, if you'd have said dead space I'd kinda agree.

You could have made the picture harder to guess by giving Alan a slight yellowish tint to match his surroundings... he's too "cold" for that warm picture.

Unless this game has you running through dark forests fighting evil things with a flashlight, I'm guessing the similarity won't be quite as severe as people think.

Before people go up in arms about his remarks. The SH community is a picky bunch. I've seen people complain about the new character's rolled up sleeves. Devin's response is to these naysayers who complain about every-little-thing. His wording can be misconstrued as negative, but he's using "ripped off" as a prod to what people are saying about Downpour.

Alan Wake was most likely influenced by games like Silent Hill, and his response says "I get why you would say that, but that's not the case".

@Arsenic13

"The GAMING community is a picky bunch"

there fix'd

@Arsenic13

Few things are worse than those who consider themselves the "community" of any given game.

@PR0F3TA Oh they are, but you have not seen the things I have seen. These fans can be scary, scary people.

@Arsenic13

It's not that we Silent Hill fans are a picky bunch, we're actualy a reasonable lot.

It's just that the protagonist's hair in SH: Downpour clearly isn't parted to one side.

That's how we know that this will be The Worst Silent Hill Game Ever Created™.

Konami...what a joke they have become.

@Jack Kevorkian

Konami is still badass in my book.

@Marco le Polo just a glimmer of fantastic titles over the past few years. and this is only the magic of the 360:

2009
Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3 Chinese Music Special Edition (Asia)
Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 (Europe, Australia & North America) / Winning Eleven 2010 (Japan & Asia)
Saw: The Videogame
2010
Adrenalin Misfits
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Def Jam Rapstar
Dance Masters (North America) / DanceEvolution (Europe, Australia & Japan)
Gradius Last Gaiden
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (Europe, Australia & North America) / Winning Eleven 2011 (Japan & Asia)
2011
Dance Dance Revolution

AMAZING

Seems like every other game that comes out nowadays has some kind of stink about "ripping off" some other game.I dont even remember hearing it that much back in the NES game when every game was actually a carbon copy of the last.

@SgtDookie
was the internet popular back in the 80s?

@golobulus

Oh, man, you should've seen the amount of people talking shit on the BBS for Crystalis.

If the SysOp didn't shut that flame war down as quick as he did, my Apple IIGS' Telnet client would've imploded from the sheer intensity of the heated debate.

Those were tumultuous times, let me tell you.

@SgtDookie

Also, we were all, like, 5 or something. So there's that, I guess.

@golobulus

Yeah and way better too.All you had to do is stick your phone on a cradle and you could download Kelly LeBrock as long as you wore a bra on your head.This of course was before they nerfed it.

two things... first Alan Wake has a Silent Hill vibe not the other way around, it may have different settings but the survival horror feel is the same. two, who gives a sh*t honestly, at this point Silent Hill games have become a milked ghost of its past, where story + atmosphere = awesome game. I liked Origins and SH4 The Room, but they were nothing compared to SH2. Ever since then its been in a steady path downhill

@PR0F3TA I'd disagree, if people stopped comparing every Silent Hill game to SH2, they'd realise that the newer games are actually okay, yeah, they're different, but they're fun, then you have ones like the critically acclaimed 'Shattered Memories' that a number of fans actually rate above The Room, Homecoming and Origins. That's why they're importing quite a bit of stuff from it into Downpour, plus Devin and Tomm produced Shattered Memories and they're now doing the same for Downpour. The series is starting to gain consistency again.

@PR0F3TA I disagree completely. Alan Wake felt nothing like Silent Hill. Unfortunately, Silent Hill: Homecoming felt nothing like Silent Hill either. This is where the problem lies - the new devs don't know what makes Silent Hill, Silent Hill. So they copy the obvious elements without really understanding WHY they worked for the old games, and to fill the massive gaps, they emulate other things to try and make at least a decent generic horror. I mean, hey, as long as it has shifts between normal and otherworld, a little bit of fog here and there, throw in some Pyramid Head for the fans, and it's BASICALLY Silent Hill, right?!

Well, no.

Well done to the writer of the article for missing out on the line after he talks about the 'ripping off' which says "IT WOULD BE NARROW MINDED TO THINK LIKE THAT"

:]

@Chewy2nd Yeah, he does say that he understands the comparison. The brief parts elude to him coming off extremely negative.

People: read the full response.

"It could easily be said that Alan Wake ripped off [Silent Hill] in a number of ways with the look and feel of their entire game."

ummm, How?

@Jamvaan I dunno, maybe caved in roads? Fog shrouded woods? A 'dark world'? A lake with mystic power?

@Grimcicle Look at the other screenshots and maybe the trailer?

I'd take as a compliment if something I was working on was compared to Alan Wake.

BTW, even though I haven't played all Silent Hill games, I've been playing them since the first one and I fail to see how Alan Wake ripped it off. I think the only similarity is the eerie atmosphere and the always present flashlight, which by no means is exclusive to Silent Hill.

Is that Norman Jayden?

Who cares. Most military FPS look the same, horror games should have to be unique.

@Mr Hett

*shouldn't

EDIT BUTTON PLEASE!

It would hardly be difficult to have more variety in environment than Alan Wake did.

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