Alan Wake’s Silent Hill Similarities Explained

Summary

Alan Wake 2 is being designed as a full survival horror experience, in contrast to the more action-oriented first game.
The game shares many elements with Silent Hill, including similar settings, exploration of towns, and creepy enemies.
Alan Wake's character and backstory resemble those of James Sunderland and Harry Mason from Silent Hill, with a focus on paranormal psychological thriller themes.

Alan Wake 2's release is creeping ever closer, and as fans prepare to dive into the long-awaited sequel, expectations about how it will feel and play compared to the original have already been set in many ways. Developer Remedy Entertainment has been extremely transparent about Alan Wake 2 being envisioned and built as a full survival horror experience from its inception. This is in contrast to the more action-oriented angle of the first Alan Wake, where the horror was not necessarily the main focus, but rather intertwined with the adventure aspects.

Alan Wake 2's Resident Evil inspirations have been well noted and reported at this point, so there's no doubt it will contain heavy doses of RE DNA. However, Alan Wake also shares an abundance of elements with the other poster child for survival horror—Silent Hill. The original title had a lot in common with Konami's series that may not be immediately apparent. But Alan Wake's Silent Hill similarities run deep throughout, from visual world design, atmosphere and enemies, and to narrative components.

Alan Wake's Silent Hill Elements Explained

Probably the most obvious similarity between Alan Wake and Silent Hill is their settings. The two titles both take place in small towns surrounded by woods enveloped in an eerie fog. This is a major factor in increasing immersion and contributes to the sense of unease, isolation, and tension in each. Alan Wake's shadowy eldritch forests evoke the same disorientation and confusion as being lost in the blinding mists of Silent Hill. Both games also allow the player to explore the towns themselves in calmer sections, meeting a cast of strange supporting characters along the way that often later play integral parts in the storyline.

Alan Wake comes off like a mix of Silent Hill 2's James Sunderland and SH1's Harry Mason in their characterizations and backstory. A 30-something man in search of a missing loved one is slowly drawn into the darkness of an unsettling place and comes to glimpse the nature of the nefarious supernatural forces behind the scenes. Both also tend towards paranormal psychological thriller territory instead of RE's corrupt corporate conspiracies, double-crossing special operatives, and mutated monster experiments. Alan Wake and SH are generally smaller-scale tales, with a closer focus on the emotional and mental state of their protagonists.

Antagonistic forces align too in how Alan Wake resembles Silent Hill. Creepy but largely humanoid enemies populate their worlds, often lurking just off-screen or suddenly appearing from the aforementioned mists to surprise the player. Silent Hill has The Order, a dangerous religious cult that is usually involved somehow in the atrocities befalling the town and its citizens. Gameplay trailers for Alan Wake 2 also seemed to introduce a cult-like faction.

SH is famous for its Otherworld, the distorted version of reality covered in decay and rust that characters find themselves transported to at various points in the plot. Alan Wake has a clear parallel in The Dark Place while The Dark Presence and SH's "God" have been seen to share the ability of being able to possess people and manipulate them for their own insidious purposes.

Alan Wake 2 will surely be compared to Resident Evil first and foremost given how highly publicized it's been for taking cues from it. Based on the above and everything revealed about the sequel so far, though , it looks poised to contain more Silent Hill similarities along with its RE and other influences. If so, then Alan Wake 2 may be shaping up to be one of the best horror games of the year.