A portion of a GiantBomb interview with Vigil Games' Ryan Stefanelli, lead level designer on Darksiders; Joe Madureira, creative director on both games; and Haydn Dalton, lead designer on the original and its sequel...

GB: When I played the game about six months ago, the way it had always previously been pitched to me from friends and colleagues was "Hey, this is the Zelda game that you know Nintendo would never make." I'm curious what you make of that comparison, because I heard it more than once.

Dalton: It’s obviously a very flattering comparison because I presume there’s certain things that are key about that title that are very similar to our own. I definitely think a big part about what makes Darksiders Darksiders is the level design. There’s definitely very similar traits between that title and what we do. We certainly don’t see it as a bad thing. I guess we only see it as a bad thing when we get dinged for very specific things and get read differently than other titles.

So, for instance, someone rated our combat up against something like Bayonetta, which is pretty hard when someone rates you against that, when that title is special--the only thing they are focused on is one part of something much bigger on our end. I think that’s where we think “Okay, draw the line, that was a little out of order,” but as for overall design, functionality and things like that, I think we definitely see that not as a bad thing at all.

Stefanelli: Like I said, wearing the inspiration on your sleeve. If you get held to that kind of company, I think that’s a good thing for our games and our studio. Obviously, it makes it sort of hell for marketing, and it makes it easier for other reviewers who see those types of comments to ding us because they go in with this preconceived notion that we are derivative games before they play it. Honestly, we love it.

If Zelda didn’t exist, Vigil Games probably wouldn’t because that’s the game that we most often quote as saying “that’s the genre we want to play in.” I think another reason why we get so many comparisons is because, look, nobody really runs in that crowd. There’s a reason there aren’t many games like Zelda--it’s because it’s really god damn hard to do. It’s really hard to make a game like that. The reason nobody calls a game a Doom clone anymore is because there’s a shitload of first-person-shooters. I mean, which one are you going to compare it to? There’s so many. The genre is literally saturated. But action-adventure games? It’s really easy to draw a comparison to Zelda because there just isn’t anything else like that. It’s the same with God of War. I mean, there are quite a few games in that genre, but, really, there are a few that stand out, like God of War, Devil May Cry. It’s kind of easier to draw a comparison between us because the breed is rare, but we knew we were going to have that problem when we went in. Like I said, not many people try to make games like that, but we loved it, so we wanted to anyway.