Darksiders 2 "derogatory", "frustrating" Zelda comparisons angers developer

Vigil Games has expressed their frustration regarding the comparisons to the Zelda franchise Darksiders 2 receives.

The original Darksiders was initially compared to the Nintendo IP due to its similar style, with the inevitable comparisons making a return for its sequel. Darksiders 2 lead designer Haydn Dalton, though, don't seem too keen on the comparisons from fans. 

"It's pretty frustrating because I think it's been ingrained into journalists and the public now. Like, they look at that and it's okay for a certain set of games to continually do that and just refine on something that they're not really going anywhere [with] and doing anything different. They're just doing very slight changes. But the way we look at it is, you don't look at the driving in GTA and say, 'Well, there was better driving in Gran Turismo'. here was better driving in Burnout Paradise but that game was completely and solely focused on that one mechanic and that's why it was so good.

"Now, we've done that and again we get, 'Well, it's not as good as this and not as good as that'. But that's all that product focused on. We've been focusing on a lot of things and trying to bring an experience that you can't... I don't think you can get a Darksiders experience anywhere else because there's not a game anywhere else that gets so many different mechanics and things that people enjoy doing in one place."

Dalton continued that Vigil believes they're within the minority in regards to game comparisons.

"It's frustrating, it is very frustrating. If it was one rule for everyone we'd be completely fine. If everyone was like that, we'd be like, 'Fine, everyone judge it like that'. But it's not. It's only certain titles. We apparently seem to be the target of this derivative comment at every single turn, but if someone can point me to another game that does the sort of things that we do in one game then I'd be like, 'Right okay, that's fine, you can compare us to that.'

"Well, the word 'derivative' is always used in the article. If anyone says it's like the games that you talked about, of course, anything like that we see as a compliment. But it's a curse as well because they see it as, like, you haven't really done anything to earn that. Everyone has seen [Zelda]. Why isn't everyone else doing it? People have tried to do things like that but they've completely failed at it.

"We seem like we've done it right but we still get a little bit whipped for it. We're trying to do something that we think is fun in a genre that I think is dying now. It's hard to do and it costs a lot of money and we're still trying to keep the idea of that action-adventure genre going. It feels a little hurtful sometimes when people are hurting us for doing that.

"Referencing, yeah, absolutely. I can see that. But when it definitely feels like remarks are derogatory and basically saying, 'Well, it's just this'. I never understand when people say it's just like God of War. It's like, 'Have you actually played the game, gone through the levels and understood how it works?' I can understand saying this one bit's a little bit like that. But when you see people in comments saying it's just a carbon copy of God of War, I don't understand that."

Darksiders 2 is currently scheduled for a release on August 14 in North America.