Shifter



Shifter was a precursor project to Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver: a video game proposal conceived circa 1997 by Amy Hennig, Seth Carus, and Arnold Ayala of Crystal Dynamics.

Though originally envisioned as a standalone concept, Shifter became associated with Legacy of Kain soon after Crystal Dynamics (later with Eidos Interactive) secured rights to continue the series. Before production on the game began, Hennig's management asked her team to adapt the proposal into a sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. The existence of the Shifter project, and its relation to Soul Reaver, did not publicly come to light until 2002.

Shifter's post-apocalyptic story concept was loosely influenced by Paradise Lost, and included prototypical versions of the characters of Raziel, Elder Kain, the Council, and the Elder God. Most of the proposal's core features carried over to Soul Reaver; the ideas of shifting between planes, gliding, and open world data streaming survived into the final product, relatively unchanged.

Profile
"I don’t know how many people know this, but initially, it wasn’t actually a sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain at all – our original proposal was a concept for a new IP we named “Shifter,” loosely inspired by Paradise Lost. The protagonist was essentially a fallen angel of death, a reaper of souls hunted by his former brethren, and now driven to expose and destroy the false god they all served."

- Amy Hennig, PlayStation Blog, 2012


 * Category: Precursor project (Games and media)
 * Precursor to: Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (1999)
 * Developer: Crystal Dynamics
 * Publisher: Eidos Interactive

Initial discovery
Soul Reaver credited Amy Hennig and Seth Carus for its "Original Game Concept," and Arnold Ayala for "Initial Concept Art." Hennig mentioned in interviews that the game was first conceptualized around February 1997, and entered full production in October of that year. She stated that its total development cycle lasted about two and a half years.

The production of Soul Reaver had been overshadowed by an ongoing lawsuit between the developers of Blood Omen, Silicon Knights, and its publisher, Crystal Dynamics: a fight for ownership of the franchise. Silicon Knights alleged that Crystal Dynamics had stolen their concept for "Kain II", and attempted to prevent the new game from being marketed. The dispute was privately resolved, and Crystal Dynamics ultimately retained permission to use the Blood Omen intellectual property.

Later, in 2002, Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack posted a public comment at IGN concerning these events, and on Soul Reaver, revealing new specifics about its origins:

Crystal Dynamics did not directly acknowledge Dyack's synopsis, but, in 2004, Ben Lincoln, of The Lost Worlds fansite, made a post challenging some of his contentions. Lincoln said:

Legacy of Kain: Defiance environment artist Desdemon endorsed this account, replying, "Ben summed it up pretty well. Anything more I could add is confidential."

In 2007, Lincoln reiterated his description of Shifter in an article on his website. He said, "no actual production work was ever done on Shifter as a standalone title - it was strictly a paper design document. Although its influence on the final game is obvious, Soul Reaver was firmly set in the same world as Blood Omen before any other work began on it." Lincoln also noted that "some fans further believed that because the concept was revealed by Dyack, Shifter had been a Silicon Knights project which was "stolen" in some way by Crystal Dynamics. This is also incorrect."

However, in a 2008 interview with 1UP.com, Dyack reasserted his views. He mentioned that "when we were doing Legacy of Kain, we had a lot of research into vampire mythology and a lot of ideas on where we were going. Crystal Dynamics merged in this entirely different game that had nothing to do with the series and then slapped the IP on it, and that's where Soul Reaver came from." Definitive comment on the Shifter project from its original creators remained elusive.

Subsequent revelations


In 2010, Legacy of Kain fan Divine Shadow highlighted a blog portfolio created in 2009 by Arnold Ayala. It showcased Ayala's artwork for Soul Reaver, and some pieces bore watermarks reading "Shifter" or "Early Shifter Concept". While several of these designs were previously released to promote Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2, and Defiance – always associated with the character of Raziel – none had been explicitly identified as concepts originally created for the "Shifter" proposal.

Divine Shadow attempted to interview Legacy of Kain series art director, Daniel Cabuco, on the subject of Shifter at Cabuco's website, DCabDesign, in 2012. However, Cabuco declined to discuss the project, citing legal constraints: "sorry, due to a legal settlement, I'm not at liberty to comment on this forum about details on Shifter or LOK. I wouldn't look too deep into Shifter, there really isn't as much there as you think. Meet me at a bar sometime and I may tell you more someday."

Later that year, Amy Hennig officially elaborated on the Shifter concept for the first time, in an interview with the PlayStation Blog:



Henning further elaborated that their original vision had also included a number of secondary features that were pared back, including shape-shifting abilities. Despite "all the changes we went through over the course of development", she still considered the final Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver release as "pretty close" to the original Shifter concept, maintaining its core content.