The Earth Reaver was a temporary elemental enhancement for the Wraith Blade. Of Ancient vampire origin, it was intended to be gained by Raziel in Soul Reaver 2 but ended up being cut due to time constraints.
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 Bladeenhancements:
"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."
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".[1]
The specifics of the usage of the Earth Reaver are unknown, though it is likely (as in the case of the Reaver enhancements that are present) that the abilities and appearance of the Earth Reaver would have matched those of its more permanent successor in Defiance;[2] with the Earth Reaver a bright-green enhancement capable of activating Earth plinths to create Earth platforms, using a range of earthquake-based attacks, and able to weigh-down Raziel, enabling him to walk on the bottom of water-filled areas and interact with submerged objects in the Material Realm.[Defiance][Defiance strategy guide][3]
Pre-release materials for Soul Reaver 2 depict Raziel in an unspecified elemental forge, bearing a bright-green Reaver enhancement. Given the specifics of the Wraith Blade enhancements in Defiance (and the 'earthy' color scheme), these are believed to be the deleted Earth Forge and Earth Reaver enhancement.[2][4]
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][2][5] 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'.[5]
The Earth Reaver was originally intended to have several other abilities which were intended to be gained from a separate Earth Reaver augmentation. The augmentation abilities were ultimately cut from Soul Reaver 2, but would be implemented in Defiance as the earthquake-related Charged attack and Reaver spell of the more permanent Earth Reaver.[6]
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][4]
Gallery[]
The entries for the deleted Reavers in the debug menu
The invisible placeholder Earth Reaver and usage effects
This article is about The Earth Reaver enhancement seen in Soul Reaver 2. For the more permanent enhancement seen in Legacy of Kain: Defiance, see Earth Reaver (Defiance).
Deleted Elemental Reavers at The Lost Worlds (by Ben Lincoln)
