The Earth Forge (Soul Reaver 2)

The Earth Forge
Cut content article Locations article
Cut from	Soul Reaver 2 (2001)

The Earth Forge, or Earth Shrine, was a Reaver Forge planned to appear in Soul Reaver 2. Within the Forge, Raziel was to obtain the Earth Reaver, an augmentation which later appeared in Legacy of Kain: Defiance. The Forge is a deleted level and is not present in the finished game.

Behind the scenes

Discussing abilities planned for Raziel to earn in a May 2000 interview concerning Soul Reaver 2, Amy Hennig commented on the development of the Wraith Blade enhancements:

"right now there's seven elemental Reaver enhancements that you can find, that you have to find. This is stuff that we wanted to have in the first game, but there was just too much, we couldn't do it all. So things like Earth Reaver, Air Reaver, Water Reaver, Fire Reaver, that kind of thing. There's seven of those, and then seven enhancements of those enhancements."

―Amy Hennig

As well as confirming the presence of "nine additional spell-type things", she caveated this information, saying it "could change", "based on our schedule and what we're going to have to adjust as we go".

The Earth symbol, among others in the Sub-Pillars dais texture

As with the other enhancements, Raziel was planned to have imbued the Wraith Blade with elemental Earth in the Earth Forge, creating the Earth Reaver. Ultimately both the forge and its associated Reaver enhancement were cut due to time constraints and the final version of Soul Reaver 2 featured only four of the seven planned Reaver enhancements and their associated forges.^{[Soul Reaver 2][Soul Reaver 2/3][Soul Reaver 2/4][Soul Reaver 2/6][Soul Reaver 2/8]} Despite the removal of the forge and its enhancement, the Earth symbol can still be observed in game on the dais of the Subterranean Pillars Chamber.^{[Soul Reaver 2]}

Prerelease screenshots archived at The Lost Worlds depict Raziel wielding a bright-green incarnation of the Wraith Blade in an area which does not appear anywhere in the game. It is highly plausible that this fictile-toned locale is the Earth Forge and associated Earth Reaver enhancement.

Addressing the deleted forges and their influences, Daniel Cabuco commented:

"We didn't build the forges beyond design bsp rooms. We cut them when we saw the schedule and our producer coming to kill us. They would have aligned to the element, just like fire was [...] Earth would have blocks moved and a massive platform (akin to Melchiah's level I think..)"

―Daniel Cabuco

"We would have used other elaborate temples like the ones in Turkey, Hindu, or even Malaysia. Just google 'ancient temple' and see all the wonderful influences available. This is part of the reference spike ALL artists have to do when working on a game. Absorb the influences, mix and match, and make it your own."

―Daniel Cabuco

It is reasonable to assume that, like its counterparts, the Forge was constructed by the Ancient vampires, would have exhibited unique architectural influences from real-world ancient temples, and would have entailed solving a complex puzzle. The location of forge within Nosgoth and the game world of Soul Reaver 2 is unknown, though several locations including Uschtenheim and the Swamp contain playable areas that are usually inaccessible and may have been intended to lead to deleted forges.

An Earth Forge does exist in the Vampire Citadel (and is visited in Legacy of Kain: Defiance), but, like its equivalents, is distinct from the dedicated Earth Forge.^{[Defiance][Defiance/9][Defiance/10]} Because of its disinclusion in the games, the Forge's canonical status is dubious.

Notes

• The Deleted Elemental Reavers can be enabled in-game through the use of the debug menu. When used, each of the deleted Reaver enhancements appear as an invisible 'placeholder' blades with no special abilities and with the blade itself doing no damage (though the Earth Reaver does appear to have a minor green usage effect and the 'sinking' ability remains).^{[Soul Reaver 2]} A different placeholder, arguably based on the Amplified Reaver (removed from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver), was accessible through debug menus on the earlier 'Air Forge demo'. Soul Reaver 2 contains several locations where the supposed abilities of the Earth Reaver could be used (assuming they are the same as the Defiance Earth Reaver); most noticeably, the ruins of the Spirit Forge at the bottom of the Great Southern Lake are likely to have used the 'sinking' ability of the Earth Reaver to activate.^{[Soul Reaver 2]}
• A second prerelease image archived at the The Lost Worlds presents another location with similarly 'earthy' tones that is labelled as "A possible image of the Earth Forge" from the cancelled Dreamcast build of Soul Reaver 2. Despite the similar color-scheme, the area shown greatly resembles areas of the Light forge, specifically the end of the corridor leading to the Light Forge key at the border between "Light14" and "Light6"', albeit with the lighting of the area drastically altered. Given Daniel Cabuco's statements regarding the development of the forges (and the Dreamcast version of Soul Reaver 2) it would seem probable that this in fact represents an early version of the Light forge and not the Earth forge.

Gallery

MP-ActivityMap-Earth.png

The Earth symbol

See also

• Deleted Reaver Forges at The Lost Worlds (by Ben Lincoln)
• Earth Reaver (Soul Reaver 2)
• Earth Forge (Defiance)

Browse

This article is about the elemental forge to imbue the Wraith blade with earth that was planned for Soul Reaver 2. For the forge with a similar purpose that appeared in Legacy of Kain: Defiance, see Earth Forge (Defiance).