Brian Gomez leaves vatra games and Downpour.

[The_Journeyman]

source: http://shshatteredmemories.com/blog/201 ... hill-team/

On October 31, 2011 Brian Gomez officially stepped down from being a Design Director at Vatra Games and is no longer working on Silent Hill Downpour. This is some saddening news but Brian assures me that Silent Hill fans should not fret!

Hi Whitney, I just wanted to give you a heads-up that today is officially my last day with Vatra Games and the Silent Hill team.
When it was announced that Downpour was being delayed to 2012, my family and I came to the decision that I couldn’t keep making the commute between Los Angeles and Brno for another 4-6 months. Downpour is so close to completion, there’s not a lot more that I can personally do for the project that Devin, Tomm, and Marek Berka cannot handle on their own. I gave my notice a few weeks ago, setting Halloween as my last day. (Seemed fitting!)

With such long stints away from the family his descision is completely understandable in my opinion and as a fan I have full confidence that he has left Downpour in not only good place but in good hands as well.

So what will be in store for Brian in the future?

A lot! He has many cool new projects in the works (and without the long stays away from his family!) but nothing he can discuss in detail at this very moment.

Being such a survival horror nut myself I asked if any of these projects will be survival horror related and I was happy to hear they are!

Yes, you can rest assured that some of the projects I’m looking at are survival horror related. There’s a lot of things I still want to do in this genre that Konami simply didn’t let me do.
I wish Brian the best of luck with his new ventures! I can’t wait to see his work with Downpour in the flesh this March (woot!) and I look forward to hearing more about what he have in store for horror gaming!

For anyone wanting to keep up to date on Brian’s future en devours you should definitely follow him on twitter! @briangomez

[Agent of God]

The man was one of the most promising-looking members of the Downpour team, in my opinion. Since he said that the game is in it's final stages though, it sounds like his work is already implemented.
I believe that the game's delay is a good thing.

[KiramidHead]

I feel okay about this. It seems like the game is mainly in the debug phase right now, something which a design director would have little to do with. I think the biggest thing to be caused by this is that Tomm and Devin will have to do more publicity themselves. Seriously, Brian did a lot of that.

[Lafayette_Reynolds]

Im fine with this, he was great and I totally understand his reason for leaving. It had nothing to do with the game itself and Its reassuring to know the rest of the team can finish the game just fine.

Also pretty excited for his new survival horror projects, looking forward to what those things are!

[Pleasant Sinner]

When I saw the heading I was like "WTF?!" But you guys are right, there's not much else to add to Downpour. So now we play the waiting game...

[SilverWolfPet]

Well let's hope the impact will be kept at a minimum.

[simeonalo]

I highly believe that impact of this is, as stated, a minimum. I mean, Downpour is (most likely) already completed with design and just needs to be polished-what role could Gomez possibly have in regards to the game at this point? Plus, it's being released in four months and I highly doubt his leaving will drastically alter the game, which looks brilliant already.

Just my thoughts.

[Piramit Kafa]

I agree that the title frightens you first but you realize it's not what you think as you read the rest. Personally I think Gomez was the bright side of the team. I said a hundred times before but I really do not like Hulett. It's not because I don't like his work-which I don't- but he is not a suitable spokesperson in my opinion. He doesn't sound like someone you can trust his words or can easily become irritating with his facial expressions in interviews-which have been teased offen-. These things effect public opinion a lot. Well anyway I loved Gomez and I'm sure he did his best to carry the game to the upper levels. So thank you Gomez and good luck on your next projects.