Showing posts with label Soul Reaver. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soul Reaver. Show all posts

Tuesday 12 May 2020

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - The Lost Content


FRAGILE HISTORY


"You may have uncovered your past, but you know nothing of it."

The last single player entry from the LOK series has been released over a decade ago and while Square Enix has tried to resurrect the franchise several times during this time, all of its attempts ended up in vain in the end (notably Dark Prophecy by Ritual Entertainment, Dead Sun by Climax, and Nosgoth by Psyonix). We have only discovered recently about many various pitches offered to the company to either reboot or continue the franchise, so long dormant. However, despite their best efforts, all the game pitches have been rejected so far. What will the future hold for us, LOK fans, still clinging to hope that we will see an official release one day? Until that day comes (if it ever does), there is, however, something else, something ancient, something primal.

It is difficult to imagine that it really has been 20 years since the Soul Reaver (SR1) release. For me, that was the game which pulled me into all of this. I had no clue about its predecessor, Blood Omen (BO1), as it apparently wasn't required to understand SR1 and was still developing my English vocabulary at the time. In this regard, SR1 has been an invaluable resource. The reason I mention this is important – SR1 sold the most copies in the series and has been critically acclaimed by the public upon its release. However, me and many other fans knew something was amiss when we discovered that only one of the many promised elemental Reavers was in the game. The swift cliffhanger ending also arrived way too soon, just as we started to become powerful with all the abilities and glyphs collected, only for Kain to suddenly escape our grasp at the end...


A DARK COVENANT


"When I first stole into this chamber, centuries ago, I did not fathom the true power of knowledge."

A US gaming magazine back then discovered several unused files on the game's disc with lots of dialogue never heard during the plot of the game. A dedicated LOK fan, Ben Lincoln, realised this, founded the Lost Worlds, the best resource of LOK cut content to this date, and vowed to uncover SR1's mysteries. Later, he also discovered levels City 10 and 11 in the game's code which were both left unused. As the Chronoplast visions hinted at a different ending altogether, he gathered the available information and was able to demonstrate an alternate turn of events. I was desperate to know more and was visiting internet cafés just to download all this so I could read it at school as didn't own a pc at home back then.

Over the years, vast amounts of footage from the deleted SR1 content has emerged since, especially in the form of screenshots found in the old magazines. Many of these depict different textures, areas, bosses and abilities not present in the final release. I had to find the answers and so I have searched, determined to reveal more. One day, I have stumbled on a footage from an unknown SR1 beta build on YouTube. There was a footage from the May beta circulating around already by that point. The June build was in a more completed state but still included debug menu/walk on air capabilities and it was possible to finish the game from beginning to the end. Yet, none of these builds contained the elusive content which has been cut from the final game. 


By May 1999, the creators have already removed almost all traces of it from the disc. That was the case until the most recent discovery, in late 2019. Not one, but three alpha builds emerged from the depths of the abyss which finally gave us understanding of all the different iterations Soul Reaver had to go through before the final release. This article will further elaborate and analyse these builds as they contain crucial information about Soul Reaver's somewhat troubled development.


DESTINY


Our futures are predestined - Moebius foretold mine a millennium ago.”

The alpha reveal brings us back full circle to what Soul Reaver could have been if its team had enough time to finish the game. The game was subject to a legal challenge and was first scheduled to release in October, 1998 (May Gamepro 1998 and July OPSM 1998) but in August the release date slipped back to December. In the end, Soul Reaver hit the shelves in August, 1999, over half a year behind its original release date. I remember reading reviews of the game at the time, in February 1999, and wondering why has it been delayed, as some of reviewers already had full game at their disposal.

However, the alpha builds from January and February provide an insight that the game was largely incomplete and was still in a very early stage of its development. To this date I am unsure how did the OPSM write their review based on this alpha build alone. The US PSM even provided a full walkthrough written by one of the employees with eight glyphs, all the bosses (including Priestess and Turel) and six Reaver forges to collect. You can imagine the confusion of the players (myself included) when the released version had none of these features and only one elemental Reaver made the cut. Myriads of questions arose after the release to which nobody could find any satisfying answers. Until now.


REVELATIONS


Destiny is a game, is it not? And now, you await my latest move...”

Thus began a search in finding the “holy grail” of the unreleased builds of Soul Reaver by a small group of dedicated LOK fans. I was honoured to be a part of this hunt and was constantly biting my nails every time there was a slight mention or hint of being one step closer to our goal. Many times it looked like we lost the any leads but the discovery of the several previously unseen beta builds was the first success and proved that these efforts were not in vain.

One of the recently revealed betas contained a selection of all the movie rooms, levels which the developers used to enact the visions as seen at the end of the game in the form of cutscenes. We only had a limited scope of visibility thanks to the low quality FMVs present on the disc and this was the very first time we could actually explore what looked like Kain's Mountain Retreat, the Pinnacle of the Silenced Cathedral and an unidentified location where Ariel would willingly sacrifice herself.

While the Pinnacle and Ariel's room where mere made to look like unknown surroundings by reusing older assets (the Smokestack and Raziel's clan territory, respectively), Kain's movie 6 room hinted at something more and every surface was ornately decorated. However, due to the spot lighting in the room only illuminating the Kain symbol on the floor in the middle, it was impossible to see all these murals and hidden details in the background. It prompted several questions – if this was just one room of the Retreat, what did the rest of it looked like? Was this its main gates? Would the final fight with Kain take place here or elsewhere? Ariel was supposed to manifest at some point and aid Raziel in his struggle to defeat Kain. Her spirit was consumed to enhance the Soul Reaver further and Raziel thus gained the Amplified Reaver, capable of even killing the dark god himself. Not many other secrets were divulged at the time of this finding, however, and so the hunt continued.


The search finally was unexpectedly successful just last year. Beyond all hope and against all probability, the alphas that we so much sought after, were in our possession. Tears of joy and excitement were almost hard to contain when the news hit us. The amount of effort and resources required to get this far, however, were almost insurmountable and not without dead end leads and many difficulties. When I took my first step into the Undercity, Smokestack and the Retreat, I finally believed this was all real and not some crazy dream. I finally understood where did those pre-release screenshots come from and discovered amazing architectural room designs for PlayStation standards which ended up all on the cutting floor. It is a huge shame to see the amount of work which got put into this and how much sacrifice was required in order to finish the game on time. These builds will be forever testaments of the great designs the team had planned but had to instead focus on fixing the bugs and issues plaguing the game in its early stages.


THE FATEFUL DILEMMA


Fate promises more twists before this drama unfolds completely.”

It is a huge relief to finally be able to share this knowledge with you and allow you to see these amazing findings. We can now observe how the designs of Soul Reaver evolved over time (link to beta comparison here) and how the layout has been restructured and re-organized to match the new Chronoplast ending, with almost one third of the game removed. As a consequence, parts of the alpha layouts are distinctively different to what we received in the retail version and is more logical. Areas which overlap in the retail do not generally suffer from the same problem (there are some exceptions, though) and less corridors are S shaped, which was a later addition to aid with the slower level and texture loading on PlayStation. 

However, game development is ruthless and these cuts were made in order to be able to ship in August. Thanks to the May, Jun and July beta builds, we are aware that the game only started to work correctly around June/July. May beta has frequent memory issues, constant crashes and texture problems. All of these issues had to be solved and subsequent builds display further progress and stability of the game.


Below you will find an outline of each area and the detailed changes found in the alpha builds. These are also explained in-depth in the Lost Content youtube series and the Alpha Screenshot Comparison article (links will be provided at a later time). The Lost Worlds also have an extensive coverage of this content together with the fabled Mama Robotnik, known for his deep analysis of Soul Reaver and  the Dark Prophecy. The Legacy of Kain Fandom also provided updated articles and screenshots which can be found here. It is time to indulge ourselves in the long lost blood fountain of knowledge.

The Smokestack



The scope of the Lair/Morlock levels is massive and it appears all the levels are accounted for (23rd Jan lacks Turel's audience chamber and the cistern). In 16th February build, these levels are pretty much fully functional and you can activate the updraft in the main chamber of the smokestack which would have led to Kain's retreat. Unfortunately, no cutscene triggers, however, this is more than enough to confirm the way Turelim territory has been constructed. What is also surprising is the entrance to the Turelim territory is in the same place where there is a large door entrance to the Oracle's cave in the final version. The entrance to the territory would have likely required possession and the nearby ledge left of the entrance might have been the key to grant passage. The Smokestack was towering over the snowy valley and it even contained a ledge with a doorway leading to nowhere, possibly an alternate exit.

The central room houses an impressive looking orrery mechanism (aptly named tri-force in its code name – three circles, three pillar symbols, three fans) and features three transparent windows overlooking it. No images of the orrery has ever been witnessed before so you can imagine the shock of finding it. It is fully animated and its circles will rotate once the puzzle has been solved, allowing Raziel to constrict the orrery as well. There are also three closed doors, not counting the doorway Raziel just came into this area, and they would have unlocked as Raziel constricted each dial above the orrery.


Taking the only path upwards, there is Lair 1, the main area of Smokestack with lava floor and giant turbine mechanism with blades in the middle. This area is positioned directly above the room with orrery. Three stationary blades served as bridges for Raziel to jump into the tunnels leading to the additional areas. Turel's chamber was accessed through Lair 4, a tall room, seen in several trailer videos and on the back of the CD case with a single Turelim in the middle of a raised platform. There is a large double door at the top of this room and a longer tunnel leading to the cistern. The cistern has a lever located on an unreachable ledge with a Turelim guarding it where possession skill would have been used.

Once pressed, Raziel could turn the crank and flood the room. This will raise the water level and Raziel can now swim through the pipe and reach Turel's audience chamber, where likely the cutscene describing it would have taken place. Raziel would then be interrupted by Turel as he tried to leave and Raziel would have to lead him to charge large pillars supporting the ceiling. Once all the pillars have been destroyed, water from the cistern would pour in onto the unsuspecting Turel. Raziel would then leave through the large double doors which he could now open with his amplified telekinetic projectile. This corridor would lead back to Lair 11 which connects to Lair 4. The connection to Lair 11 hasn't been finished yet, however, so in these builds it only leads to blank space.

As Raziel progresses towards the last lever, he stumbles upon a suspended platform over water with what appears to be a cracked wall near the ceiling. There are several pupating Turelim on the platform, so Raziel could either sneak past them to avoid being ambushed or alternatively, he could use his amplified TK on the crack and let in rays of sunlight which would scorch the Turelim (Daniel ref here). When all three levers have been activated, doors to the dial rooms would open. After three dials were constricted and then finally the orrery itself as well, the blades of the turbine would start to spin, allowing Raziel to ascend to Kain's Mountain Retreat.

The Undercity


The entrance to the Undercity is, as expected, via City 9 which leads directly to City 10/11. The large water reservoir then has a long pipe leading into Undercity itself which was designed as a large water cistern with water walkways capable of flooding the main chamber when progressing to the higher levels of the room. The Undercity, unlike the Smokestack, has also its own warp gate accessed via Undercity 2. Unfortunately, no symbol is present and it is unclear what it would have been.

The main room is split into two parts – Undercity 1 and Undercity 22. Next to the warp gate on the bottom floor level Raziel found the first flood gate which flooded the main chamber of the Undercity. This allowed him to swim further up and discover another opening, accessed via suspended wooden bridge. This room had a large ornate walls with a cage like structure in the middle. There were also slanted ramps for Raziel to push the block up to the top and then drop it down, freezing it in mid air by shifting to spectral. This has been mentioned in the previews of SR1 a lot but it actually never made it into the final game. Once in the cage, Raziel could push a second block off the ledge and wedge it under the floodgate mechanism and flood the main chamber once again. The last stage of this puzzle involved a tall temple building with "OIFIC" mural and using shift at will at various parts in the room to reveal hidden platforms. Once at the top, Raziel would have to shoot down a block and use it on the floodgate mechanism. This would flood the Undercity in full and allowed Raziel to reach the up most area.



At the top there was a tall tower with a winding staircase leading into the Priestess' temple. The Priestess was supposed to be on the upper level, summoning Melchahim and other vampires to stop Raziel from climbing the wall. In the alpha builds, she only spawns at the bottom. There are several doorways on the base level, which would have opened to release a vampire to attack Raziel. There was an opening which allowed Raziel to escape without going all the way back to the warp gate and would have lead back to the City 9 level through a tower which has been deleted in the beta and later builds. Screenshot explanation of the whole puzzle is found here.

Kain's Mountain Retreat


This highly decorated half-circular corridor (potentially meant to be a full circle just like around the Pillars main throne chamber) is adorned with archways bearing warrior etchings, certainly evoking a grand feel to this final set of levels. The middle part of the corridor leads Raziel into Retreat 2, the antechamber to the main boss room. There are several alcoves with nothing in them which could point to the suits of armour and other relics that Kain has collected over the course of the time (link to Daniel here).

While Retreat 3, the boss room itself, is not textured, there are several magazine shots which display a dark blue/white colour scheme, same as the one seen in the final Chronoplast area in the retail version. There are stained glass windows around its dome and Kain's throne is situated above a staircase. The middle section looks like would have had a lit brazier. It is not clear how the events here would have progressed and which part of the conversation with Kain would have taken place here and if the Chronoplast vision of a courtyard area in the Retreat was connected to these sets of levels in any way. It is possible that the courtyard was added after February, but it is not possible to know without further information.

Silenced Cathedral and the Pinnacle


The Cathedral is the largest area in the game but even then it leaves an impression that there was something more planned for it. Thanks to the deleted dialogue, we knew that Raziel was meant to return here after killing Kain and open all the sounding pipes, effectively exterminating all the vampiric life in Nosgoth. However, this could have played out two ways – according to Daniel Cabuco, there would be no gameplay after Retreat and the ending would have been done in an FMV sequence.

However, the alpha builds also suggest another alternative, a playable option instead – there are many sounding pipes throughout the Cathedral and there is even a giant stone valve which suggest Raziel could control the flow of the air by constricting the valve. These sounding pipes are found at each level of the cathedral and Raziel would have presumably been assaulted by an army of Zephonim trying to stop him. This would have escalated in a visit to Zephon's chamber and Raziel could then unlock the door behind him with his Amplified Reaver and reach the top of the Cathedral where presumably the final pipes would have been opened. Elder God would then congratulate Raziel on exterminating his own kin. Some time later, Raziel would have realised this was a big mistake and travel back in time. It is unclear if Raziel would meet Moebius in the past or perhaps Mortanius and if the events would have been different than the ones we have seen in Soul Reaver 2.


Spirit Glyph


This is perhaps the most facepalm worthy find of all – as it has been under our noses this whole time! We just did not realise what it originally meant to be. The retail version have you travel to the City and drain a flooded passage to get to this vampiric decorated set of two adjacent rooms. Only a health upgrade awaits Raziel here, nestled gently upon the stream of the fountain in the middle of the room, but developers' plans have been completely different. Mrlock 7 and Mrlock 8 were supposed to be in the northern wastes, just pass Hubb 1, connected to Mrlock 1. Remember the corridor with the bonfire and nothing else in there? That is where these rooms connected. Spirit Glyph was hidden inside the altar and required a vampire to sacrifice. Raziel had to lure a Melchahim (potentially by possession) to the middle and thus the Spirit Glyph would be granted.

Order of the Glyphs



The Sunlight Glyph was found first and was the weakest of them all – it only temporarily blinded enemies. Its entrance was in the water filled pool in Train 9 (the fighting training room with a couple of Melchahim). The retail version has just a health upgrade found beyond a gate in the water, but there was actually a tunnel there which places the Lighthouse area slightly more biased towards the Pillars. The second glyph after defeating Zephon would have been likely the Stone glyph, just like in the retail version, according to this guide. Water and Fire would require beating Rahab. Sound, Force and Spirit last would require to have shift at will and Spirit potentially also possession.

The Reaver Forges


There was a much larger role planned for the forges which were eventually cut from the game. Originally, the basic wraithblade did not have a finishing move and Raziel had to rely on dispatching vampires by other means such as staves and torches which he found laying around. However, Raziel slowly discovered these forges across the land and they allowed him to imbue his Soul Reaver with many different elemental powers. 


Once imbued, the blade stayed charged with that element even if Raziel shifted realms, unlike in Soul Reaver 2 and more akin to Defiance. With a few slashes of the blade, the enemies would then burst into flames, shatter or completely disintegrate. Thus it was beneficial for Raziel to seek these enhancements out, even though they were voluntary, as they removed his dependency on the environment around him. The released version has an added charge move and makes the wraithblade capable of killing enemies as long as Raziel did not get hit. This made it possible to finish the game without using any other weapon besides the Soul Reaver and it is a great shame that only the Fire Reaver was spared the cut.

Oracle's cave original placement



This was completely unexpected! When I arrived at Mrlock 2, there was no entry to the Oracle's, no dial to turn. Only the silent horned statues marking the entrance to the Smokestack. The caves still had to be in the north somewhere, however. The Ash Village is mostly unchanged, except a few extra paths. The second outdoors courtyard with three separate doorways was hiding a secret. The right path leads to a Stone forge, the left one is a dead end just like in retail and potentially could have led somewhere else and the middle path is not indoors at all. It leads to a large snowy mountain hill, even with an extra duplicate Stone forge in its left side. At the top, a narrow passage leads Raziel straight into Moebius' museum. This matches a lot better with its placement in BO1 as well and gives Dumah's territory a proper hub purpose.

Original progress throughout the game


Although, we previously had the cut dialogue available, it was not entirely clear on how would it all connect together. Additional voice over lines were added to accommodate the new progress which confused the matters further. Thanks to the alpha versions, it is possible to reconstruct the original path that Raziel was supposed to take while traversing Nosgoth. Raziel would begin his journey in the Underworld, go past the training area next to the Pillars, where a hidden underwater gate would take Raziel to the Sunlight Glyph, which he can access after beating Melchiah.

Then EG would point him to go to the Cathedral, which without the wraithblade sounds quite daunting. The Cathedral would have no Reaver door, only a raised bridge over a moat and a fenced gate requiring phase through gates ability. This huge level has some minor changes and much more detail in forms of extra webbed tunnels and pipes. Zephon's cutscene also reveals hidden door behind his back, which could only open really late in the game (potentially after killing Kain). Raziel would then be directed back to the Pillars, to deal with Kain and obtain the wraithblade. Note that the wraithblade already had the projectile ability and a separate ability would have been acquired possibly in the Sarafan Tomb, just like in the retail version (where Tomb Guardian is located in Boss 2 room). As the dialogue for the Tomb Guardian was just a modified version of Raziel's dialogue with Turel, it is unclear whether Tomb Guardian would be guarding this area and if he would have spoken.


Next stop would be the Drowned abbey which had an alternate exit/entrance in the January build but which got consequently removed in the later builds, never to be seen again. Dumah's territory would be reachable with the ability to swim but this wasn't a dead end like in the released version. The back courtyard with a constrictable object would eventually lead Raziel up a snowy hill to the cave entrance of the Oracle's cave which is more in line of how Kain enters in Blood Omen. The cave would have led Raziel to the Chronoplast which only consists of one longer tunnel and then the Chronoplast itself. There was no warp gate there and no visions at this stage. After the battle, Raziel would gain the Shift at Will ability and be directed by the Elder God to re-enter the Undercity. Raziel would have to completely flood it to reach the tower at the top and get possession from the high Priestess there. Possession would allow Raziel to traverse the Smokestack area, where Turel will stand in Raziel's path. After dispatching him, Raziel would then activate the smokestack turbine and flew to Kain's mountain retreat.

In order to showcase all this content, the Ancient's Den collaborated with the Legacy of Kain Fandom and The Lost Worlds to bring you the brand new LOK Alpha YouTube series – The Lost Content. In this playlist we explain in-depth all that once was and all the different design changes Soul Reaver during development. Kevin Chatmajo also prepared a video reel of all the animations found in the alpha builds for the Priestess and Turel. AesirHod provided a super useful tool called the Recombobulator. Hope have enjoyed all the newly discovered content from Soul Reaver!



Friday 16 August 2019

Soul Reaver's 20th anniversary


It is kinda hard to imagine that it was over 20 years ago when I have first played Soul Reaver Lighthouse demo in March 1999. I was 11 years old when I got my PlayStation and switched from PC gaming to consoles until 2009. Tomb Raider 3 was my very first proper game fully in 3D and I remember I was super excited and disoriented by the new posibilites of moving along all axis in a videogame. I was mostly brought up on side scrolling pixel games so when 3D finally became the norm, it was a totally new world to explore.

We came along way since the old limitations of 2MB memory of the original PlayStation, but back then such limitations gave rise to some of the best games and workarounds in history. Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, just an example of a few games which spawned huge series with a large fan following. However, in 1999, a continuation of a forgotten 2D game was finally released after several months of delays and premature magazine reviews. Eidos has released Akuji just a few months before Soul Reaver's release which felt more like an appetiser of what is to come. Soul Reaver released today 20 years ago and was hugely successful. Everything from the intricate design of its characters, breathtaking intro cinematic which got us all hooked on this gothic fantasy straight away and was heavily promoted.

Soul Reaver was also the first (to my knowledge and no, it wasn't Jak and Daxter) to use seamless streaming of the environment. This allowed for the developers to create a series of interconnected tunnels and larger rooms, while the game would only visualize the ones adjacent to the room you were in. Raziel's model itself was a sight to behold (his iconic idle stance is hard to forget too!) and his smooth animations were expertly done. In comparison to rather simplistic cartoon like look of Lara, it really stood out. The gliding and fighting mechanic were a breath of fresh air after 3 Tomb Raider games of pure shooting, I thought at the time, and the grotesque creatures prowling around in a sombre wasteland perfectly complemented the game's dark atmosphere. 

The dynamic soundtrack which changed not only based on the situation but also on whether you were outside, inside, solving a puzzle or battling a boss was an amazing feat which has never been repeated again in the series in such abundant variety. In comparison, SR2 has a lot less of types of music changing, lacking boss fight and puzzle solving section. The distinction between being outside and inside has been removed as well. Defiance even has trouble connecting the music seamlessly (apparent mostly in the Stronghold) and removes music from cutscenes altogether.

To this day is Soul Reaver still my favourite game and there is not a game like it out there. Many tried (Primal comes to mind) but not even Soul Reaver's own successors could reach the ambitions of this game which cut content can be written about for pages. This inner drive to discover Soul Reaver's deepest secrets has brought me here today.

To commemorate Soul Reaver's birthday, a number of sites released some interesting goodies with regards to our beloved series. The Legacy of Kain Wiki also shared a collection of manuals, sources, comics and other material. The Lost Worlds released a reverse-engineering toolkit for use with Ghidra, useful for those more technically skilled. The Ancient's Den decided it is finally time to release the biggest archive of Legacy of Kain magazine mentions, reviews, previews, interviews, etc. Many of them contain previously unseen images and information. It is all uploaded on G-drive so you can view the individual magazines and read or download them separately. Thanks to everybody who contributed to this collection!

Thursday 20 September 2018

Soul Reaver 2 walkthrough online!

I have finally had some time to record all of SR2 footage, so now I have all of Soul Reaver games covered. I must say I am still considering doing a Playstation or Dreamcast run of SR1 at the moment, but I´ll see. This still leaves BO1 and BO2, but maybe one day... Recording via Shadow play made things a lot easier as OBS would not work for SR2 and Fraps just creates uber large files (I do not have that much space on my hdd). Below are all the links to the walkthroughs I have done so far for the three LOK games:


 ------------------------------------------------------------
And if anybody missed Defiance, here is the first part:

 ------------------------------------------------------------
Here is my pc Soul Reaver walkthrough:


Wednesday 14 June 2017

Is Square Enix offering up LOK to the indie scene?

SE Collective creator, Phil Elliott, wants to know whether you will be interested in LOK game made by an indie company. Show some support for our fan Soul Revenant project if you can! Show them that Legacy of Kain fans still exist and roam this land!

Friday 12 May 2017

Soul Reaver Storyboard

I have put together the official storyboard which was published in EGM 115 from February 1999. Never seen this anywhere else and it is quite easy to miss it as a strip on the bottom of the page about SR1.

                                                  Download or view the storyboard here




Tuesday 1 November 2016

My Raziel cosplay at London Comic Con October 2016

As it just turned 20th anniversary of Blood Omen and 15th of Soul Reaver 2, I wanted to do something special. This October´s London Comic Con provided a good opportunity to do so and was my first where I have actually participated as a cosplayer. The choice what to cosplay was pretty obvious right from the start to me - what better choice than my favourite wraith himself?

My first obstacle was how to recreate muscle like tissue on top of my own body. I have seen other cosplayers do protruding muscle suits, but I have felt this would be too difficult to achieve in my first cosplay idea, so I had to find a work around. Looking around on ebay, I have discovered that there is a tank top and leggings with a muscle structure already imprinted. The issue was that they did not come in blue and painting spandex is not really possible either. However, I put a transparent blue stockings and top to make it appear blue/purple. The wings themselves were not as difficult, but it took some time to discover which kind of material would do best for them and how big should they actually be (I had to cut out like 5 pairs in the end until I was finally happy with the result).


After I had the wings done, I had to figure out how to attach them to my back without attaching them to the net top. I have decided to try and use a coat hanger held onto a belt on my chest, which turned out to work well and kept the wings posable and easily removable. For the hands I had to order custom tri-fingered gloves. I covered my arms with two wristwarmers on each side to form a string of brown bandages and for the upper part I have cut up a tube bandage into two pieces and just tied it around my arm. I´ve put the golden armbands on top the wristwarmers.

The boots were one of the bigger challenges that I had to rely solely on myself, so I have purchased cheap used boots which suited the style. The huge issue was how to create the protruding exposed double toes, which are so specific about Raziel. I have thought about it and to make the boots durable and not awkward when walking, decided to just paint a dividing line between the toes, rather than attaching something which can easily fall off. I think it came out alright in the end. Since the original boots were pure black, I purchased Angelus leather colours and applied three coats of bronze paint. The bottom part I have painted blue to indicate those are Raziel´s feet and used a lighter blue to draw the muscle going in between the toes. After the paint was sealed in, there was still a missing piece. The plates which are at the front of the boots, right above the toes, had to be cut out of the raw leather and attached with glue.


The cowl was a custom made item and was one of the most expensive items on the list. The craftsmanship of it and nice material make up for the price, though. The only problem which I faced on the convention and in general was, that while moving my head around, the cape would slide down, exposing my chin, so I have added a rubber band to the top circle of the cape so it will stay in place and I can freely move my head around.

The head itself was a challenge and I was contemplating using face paint or a mask, but a mask won because of how practical it was. I just bought a simple plain white mask,cut it up and painted it with acrylic colours. The colours were a bit damaged while I was wearing it, so a quick repaint and sealing the coat will do the trick. For the hair I purchased a black wig, which was quite cheap but fulfilled its purpose well. For the eyes I have ordered zombie eye pre-scription contacts, so I could walk around and still see sharply (I´m shortsighted). It was quite difficult to put them in at first (still takes me several tries to insert them in and out) but I got used to them. After I got home from Comic Con, I have discovered I had a balaclava, which would have been great to cover up my lower jaw, so I´ve used that for the newer shots. For the ears I have bought two pairs, one full on ears and the second pair just stick ons. Stick ons proved more practical in the end (just cut out ear slots in the balaclava so my ears can poke out and stick on blue ears can be attached).

Overal, making this cosplay was a lot of fun but even more fun was posing for people and walking around acting as Raziel, trying to do my best impression of his walking, gliding, fighting, etc (did a little "glide" down the stairs with my wings up at the end on my way to the cloak room). Looking around and breathing was a bit difficult but I knew cosplaying comes at a cost of some discomfort. Totally worth it and thanks goes to all the fans who took a picture of me and appreciated my cosplay, you made me really happy! I´ll definitely attend another comic con next year.

Resources:
Cape: 40
Wig:  8
Ears: 3
Contacts: 30
Armbands: 2
Boots: 10
Raw leather: 15
Angelus paint: 30
Bandages: 3
Gloves: 15
Wrist warmers: 6
Mask: 2
Aquarel colours: 3
Belt: 4
Coat hanger: free
Wing fabric: 10
Blue leggings+top: 8
Muscle suit: 10
Torch materials: 8

Total estimate: 200 pounds
Time needed: 1-2 weeks

Tuesday 26 April 2016

Soul Reaver OST v7

I have went back and refined the last version of the soundtrack and produced a much more compact, "mini" version, if you like. This version is half the size of the v6 OST and contains only single looped tracks as opposed to the double looped versions in the previous one. The reason behind this was, since the Necropolis appeared to have two loops which are slightly different, it seemed all the rest had the same setup. However, after doing some research, I have come to a conclusion that this was not the case for the rest of the tracks, whose second loop was identical to the first and thus redundant. These new single looped tracks can be easily looped within the same family (Underworld, Necropolis, etc.) or just looped flawlessly on their own. There are also some other slight changes which you can find in the read me file. Hope you enjoy!

Note: This is an outdated version, see below for the latest.


Monday 29 June 2015

Soul Reaver reforged by Man at Arms

We have all been patiently been awaiting this day and today the legendary blade Soul Reaver was reforged by Man at Arms. Look at the spectacular process of forging piece of metal into a fully functional replica. My only gripe with it is the inaccurate face structure (mostly eyes and nose), wrong placement of the guards and lack of any details and spirals curling the wrong way on the hilt. All in all, it is still a great looking blade and huge thanks to the guys who made it!


Final result:

Compare it with Michael Craughwell´s version:


Or this version, by Omega Artworks:


Livebyhonor´s sword:

Sunday 12 April 2015

Soul Reaver Soundtrack v6

Hello!

Here is a re-worked sixth version of the Soul Reaver Soundtrack. I have drastically reduced its size (only 800MB now), while the quality was kept intact. This time it is only in Ogg Vorbis format, as the FLAC version was redundant because the source files do not reach such high bitrates. There are also numerous small fixes present (renamed several tracks, track length unified further - more in the Read Me file). I hope you´ll enjoy this latest and more compact rendition of the awesome SR1 soundtrack!



NOTE: Please download the latest version 7.

Friday 12 September 2014

Soul Reaver Alpha Screenshots

Recently, a rare footage from a supposed Alpha version of Soul Reaver has sprung up on YouTube. The video showed the first portion of the game and is different in many regards than what he have seen so far. Raziel has a white aura around him, just like the sluagh, and disappears once he switches to material realm, where the health coil appears instead. There is even the early "ying yang" shift symbol in the Glyph menu and the Glyph menu has 8 slots. However, the video was taken down not long after it was put up. The uploader said he had sold the alpha build. However, it is strange and unfortunate as to why the video had to be taken down as well. That footage has a huge historical value for all LOK fans, so I documented it in several screenshots below with short commentary. If anybody has more info about any alpha build of Soul Reaver which is out there somewhere, please contact me, I´d be eternally grateful. It supposedly has the Undercity still built in and hopefully the Turelim clan territory as well. Thanks goes to Thiago, who saved the video from being lost to the abyss.

EDIT: It seems that the video has been put back online again. Watch here.


 Raziel has white aura as soon as the cutscene starts





 The footage is very dark

 The vortex of souls looks different


The placeholder pillars symbol is seen through the warp gate

 Soul as seen in the Lighthouse demo

 There are blue particles spawned as Raziel devours souls

 The soul spawner is blue as well, unlike the green colour it has in the final version


 There is also a wondering sluagh in this area

Sluagh training room

 This cutscene starts earlier


 Walking on air is present

 The planar portal looks like from SR2/Defiance


 The debug menu in a normal font, unlike in Beta



The ying yang symbol seen before in early magazine reviews
and 7 additional slots for glyphs





 Material health coil only appears in the material realm


 The underworld entrance is left open when in the material realm

The footage ends here unfortunately