Soul Reaver / Shifter [PSX / DC / PC - Beta / Debug / Unused Stuff]

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is a third-person adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos. It was released for the PlayStation and PC in 1999 and for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000.  Soul Reaver entered development alongside Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain in 1997 and focused on puzzle solving instead of Blood Omen 2′s action.

Before the final release, Crystal Dynamics had to cut significant game material, including a more involved Glyph system and other bosses. In an interview, series director Amy Hennig stated that the development team split the original, much larger plans in two after realizing that they had “over-designed the game”, given the constraints on time and data. This decision explains Soul Reaver’s cliffhanger ending and the appearance of originally planned material in later games. Despite the split, Hennig explained that the team left unused components in Soul Reaver’s game engine to avoid unforeseen glitches that might have arisen from their removal. [Infos from Wikipedia]

As we can read in this interesting article from The Lost Worlds, many items, weapons and areas were removed / not used in the final game, as the Amplified Force Projectile & Possession abilities, The Amplified Reaver and The Ariel Reaver weapons, Five additional Reaver upgrades and the The Mountain Retreat area. You should check the Lost Worlds article for more informations, it’s really well done!

Thanks to John Doom for the contribution!

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