Shifter

Shifter was Crystal Dynamics' earliest concept for the game which would eventually become Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. Conceived as early as 1995 and originally intended for release as a standalone title, its ideas were "merged" with the Legacy of Kain series when Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive obtained the license to the franchise. According to The Lost Worlds, no concrete production work was ever commenced on the standalone Shifter concept, but several artworks by Arnold Ayala have been released.

Synopsis
The Shifter concepts were developed as early as 1995-1996 at Crystal Dynamics, and detailed numerous plot elements and motifs which would be incorporated into Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. The premise of the title would involve a plane-shifting protagonist cast down by his master and brothers, who would return to hunt them down - precursor characters to Raziel, Elder Kain and The Council. Thematically, Shifter would prominently incorporate angelic and biblical imagery. Evidence of Shifter first publicly surfaced when Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights issued a response to many fans who had inquired about the direction they had planned to steer the series in.

Stating that Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was a major departure from their original plans and that Crystal Dynamics had no access to their own concepts for a sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Dyack elaborated:


 * "In fact, Razeal [sic] was never meant to be in the Kain series at all. Originally he was in a game originally titled Shifter – a game with an angelic theme where you shifted between 2 planes to complete the game. Crystal Dynamics did not have confidence that this game would do well as an original title so midway through the development cycle they slapped Legacy of Kain title on it, gave Razeal the Soul Reaver and went on to call it Soul Reaver."

Dyack briefly reiterated this synopsis of Shifter in a 2008 interview. According to Ben Lincoln of The Lost Worlds, Shifter was "strictly a paper-design document" and Soul Reaver was firmly set in the same world as Blood Omen before any other work began on it."

While its influence on Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is clear, Crystal Dynamics have never publicly commented on the project, although Arnold Ayala's early concept art for The Shifter and The Master was uncovered in July 2010 by Divine Shadow. Some of this art has also appeared in bonus materials for Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 and Legacy of Kain: Defiance, but was not openly attributed to the Shifter project in these instances.