Legacy of Kain Wiki
Register
Advertisement

The Ariel Reaver was an enhancement for the Wraith Blade that was planned for inclusion in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, but was ultimately cut due to time constraints.

Profile[]

The Ariel Reaver was an enhancement for the Wraith blade that Raziel was intended to gain in the final stages of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, presumably as he pursued Kain to his mountain retreat. Informed by Ariel that only with her soul would he be able to harm Kain, Raziel absorbed Ariel's soul into the wraith blade, creating the powerful Ariel Reaver and ultimately allowing Raziel to kill Kain and gain the Kain Reaver. Like the Kain Reaver, the Ariel Reaver was a permanent enhancement which replaced his other wraith blade enhancements, though it is unclear what special abilities it had, if any.[1]

Despite being removed, the blade can be activated in game through the use of the debug menu, revealing it was a golden blade with a white core. No special abilities were present in-game.[2][Soul Reaver][1][3]

Behind the scenes[]

In the June 1st Beta the Ariel Reaver is not strictly present in the Chronoplast visions instead a red and black Reaver - matching the colorscheme of the Kain Reaver is gained from Ariel's death - potentially suggesting this may have been the original colorscheme intended for the overarching Amplified Reaver and that the Ariel Reaver was added later. Artist Daniel Cabuco said of the colors:

The Red Kain Reaver in SR1 was meant to be a black and red reaver used after striking down Ariel to absorb her and kill Kain, as seen in the Chronoplast. We had a thought in Defiance to match that shot and style for the Spirit Reaver Purification scene, and use the black/red to show that what you saw in SR1 wasn't exactly what you thought it was. However the black and red didn't match the look we wanted for the Purified Spirit Reaver and was redesigned. We hung on to the old one for comparison when showing to Amy.
―Daniel Cabuco[4]
Hahaha oh yeah that's right! It was the same problem twice over. In SR1 we used the black and red, then went with the yellow/white purified reaver, then in Defiance we did the black and red again, then I think Amy reminded us it was yellow/white.I really wish we could have used the red/black one, I really liked it.
―Daniel Cabuco[4]
SR1-MovieBeta-ArielReaver

The early red and black Ariel Reaver

The exact relationship between the Amplified Reaver, Ariel Reaver and Kain Reaver was something of a mystery until alpha builds of Soul Reaver were publicized in 2020. The Amplified Reaver was known to exist and was mentioned in prerelease interviews and materials as an all-powerful blade superseding and encompassing the prior elements. But the retail game made no mention of this - instead referring to the two blades seen in the Chronoplast Visions as the Ariel Reaver and the Kain Reaver. In the retail version of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Debug menus can be used to activate various version of the Wraith Blade - among them are variants named the Ariel Reaver and the Kain Reaver - presumably reflecting the permanent alterations gained by Reaver consuming the souls of Ariel and Kain respectively - each with its own design. The alpha revealed that neither Ariel or Kain Reaver had been present originally and instead the Reaver list was purely made up of the 'elemental' Reaver enhancements. The Amplified Soul Reaver was listed differently as an ability - the last in the game - although activating it didn't appear to have any effect at this time. As the game moved into beta development most of the famous cut content was removed including the Amplified Reaver, but some time later the Chronoplast Visions were recorded and during this time the Sunlight and Spirit Reavers were repurposed - and in some case recolored - to become the Ariel and Kain Reavers, respectively. These stood in for the Amplified Reaver in the visions and were left into the retail game, resulting in not just the absence of the Amplified Reaver but the Sunlight and Spirit Reavers as well.

Notes[]

SR1-HDVisions-Vision5

Raziel gaining the Ariel Reaver in the Chronoplast vision

SR1-PC-Reaver-Ariel

The PC Ariel Reaver

  • The Ariel Reaver does make an appearance in-game: with part of the cutscene showing Ariel's death and the gaining of the Ariel Reaver depicted in the Chronoplast Visions. Dialogue dealing with the encounter can still be extracted from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver The scene would later be performed in canon at the end of Legacy of Kain: Defiance, with the Spirit Reaver (arguably a development of the Ariel Reaver concept) stepping in for the Ariel Reaver.[1][5][Defiance/12].
  • There is confusion to as to how Raziel would have imbued the Ariel Reaver; despite her being bound to the Pillars, Ariel's final dialogue suggests her death scene may take place at another location - probably Kain's Mountain Retreat - This is similar to the way in which Ariel's soul is moved through time and space when the Spirit Forge is activated and Spirit Reaver imbued in Legacy of Kain: Defiance.[1][5]
  • The Ariel Reaver concept was eventually modified to become the Spirit Reaver, planned for inclusion in Soul Reaver 2 and finally seen in Defiance. Both blades are imbued by the 'death' of Ariel and are all powerful super weapons obtained near the conclusion of a game[1].

See also[]

References[]

Browse[]

Advertisement