Legacy of Kain: Funk Soul Brother in Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine issue 36 (by John Davison and Joe Rybicki)
- September 2000
- By John Davison, Joe Rybicki, Amy Hennig, Michael Bell, Kurt Harland, and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine
- Transcribed by Aevum
"Raziel chases Kain back in time seeking revenge and redemption in the thrilling conclusion to Crystal Dynamics' million-seller."[1]
Profile[]
Arguably one of the best-looking PlayStation games ever made, Soul Reaver has now sold over one million copies worldwide. A visual feast of gothic architecture, vampires, monsters and spectacular effects, the sequel, which will be appearing on PlayStation2 early in 2001, certainly has a hard act to follow. Has it really been worth the wait? Is it really worth upgrading to a PS2 just to be able to find out what happens? Is there really any excuse for that abrupt ending to the first game? Amy Hennig, director of the game, sets the record straight from her book-cluttered office at Crystal Dynamics' headquarters in Menlo Park, California. "Obviously, for reasons that seem to be infamous, that was not the originally intended ending for the first game," she sighs. This is clearly something she's explained many times. "I would've liked to have ended it more elegantly than we did. I really wanted to end the game with a final confrontation between Raziel and Kain. As I've said before in other interviews, the excised material was only the equivalent of one largish level. Basically we just ended up cutting elements because the game would've suffered if we didn't," she shrugs. "Because of the time constraints we were under, if we were to have put that material in, the levels and the encounters would've been much shorter than we wanted them to be. We would've lost some of the drama in the game's climax, and I felt it would have come across as overly rushed, so we ultimately decided to cut things down." Those of you who reached the climax of Soul Reaver will no doubt agree that while the "to be continued..." ending was somewhat abrupt, the experience leading to that point was by no means flawed. "Ultimately I think it turned out to be a very good thing for the series," Amy concludes. But enough of the first game...what happens next?
Time Travel Is Complicated[]
The time travel concept is very much at the heart of the new game. While Soul Reaver 2 is a true sequel, all of the action actually takes place in the past. "It spans time periods well before Blood Omen, as well as just before, during, and just after," Amy explains. "The initial impetus for going back in time (as Raziel) is that you're pursuing Kain. It's not like Kain ran away at the end of Soul Reaver—he lured Kain into the portal. Kain has a purpose in mind which he needs Raziel to fulfill. Raziel, meanwhile, still believes that he's on this single-minded crusade." When pressed for more detail on this element of the story, Hennig won't be bullied. We assume Kain needs Raziel's soul-sucking abilities through that dainty little hole in his face, but we let her continue. "Silicon Knights' original title for Blood Omen was actually 'The Pillars of Nosgoth'—the Pillars were the main focus of that game, as they are in Soul Reaver 2. They're the mythological and geographical hub of the whole thing. They'll be visited in every time period—and you'll see them in each progressive state—pristine, crumbling, and completely destroyed—and their significance will begin to be revealed." Soul Reaver 2 will definitely open up the tapestry of the story, "I want to take people back to the characters and mythology from Blood Omen—to help make people familiar with the history of the previous game. Since Blood Omen came out back in 1996, we have to assume that there are a lot of people who haven't played it—the majority of players will probably come to the story only knowing about the events of Soul Reaver.
"For me, philosophically, the whole story must be wrapped around the idea (borrowed from Joseph Campbell) that the only way a hero can ever succeed is by following his own path. As long as he's following a path laid out by someone else, ultimately he's going to fail. He's not going to reach the 'grail', so to speak. That's one way I've chosen to interpret the first game. Kain, because of his decisions, was doomed to failure. Even if advertently, he was always carrying out other people's wishes and failed to forge his own path—even when he thought he was. This raises some interesting issues—particularly the question of destiny versus free will, which was so pivotal in the first game. Is it possible to escape preordained fate? And it's interesting to layer this question into a time travel story. This is really the whole crux of the time travel concept—can you change history or not? And if so, what does it mean to change history—in terms of being responsible for the repercussions? I did some research into time travel fiction, in preparation for Soul Reaver 2. For me, the most interesting approach in time travel stories is summed up with the statement: 'you can't go back in time and change history because you didn't.' That's my favorite way of looking at it. If you do go back—then you did go back. Which means that time travel is ultimately a journey of epiphanies, where the protagonist realizes the role that he already played in history. Of course, Blood Omen established that history can in fact be changed—and we'll be respecting this precedent in Soul Reaver 2."Goodies vs. Baddies[]
The original Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain cast Kain as an anti-hero, whereas Soul Reaver definitely saw him evolve into a malevolent demi-god. "My personal perception of Kain himself has actually changed over the years," Amy ponders. "In some ways I find him an even more attractive and interesting character than Raziel because there's more complexity to him. Raziel, ironically, is more two-dimensional than Kain at this point—partly, I guess, because less of his back-story has been revealed. Raziel is flawed, too, though. He's going to make mistakes—and already has." Growing wings, pissing off his boss and being thrown into a vortex that burns all of his skin off being just a few of them. "There's villainy in Raziel, and there's heroism in Kain—and I hope that's fairly evident through the dialog in the first two games," Amy continues. "Kain is very much the focus of the series, though. If you remove the melodrama and just look at the human elements of his character, you can see that he's flawed. Depending on how you look at things you could call him a tragic hero or an anti-hero. In my opinion, characters painted as 'true villains' just aren't interesting. They're too two-dimensional; no one is ever really so uncomplicated. Everyone always has their motives for what they're doing—everybody believes they're doing the right thing within their belief system. Kain is basically screwed by his own character flaws—which is more interesting than the idealized hero figure." Kain's been a pretty nasty sonofabitch though hasn't he? "No bad guy ever thinks he's a bad guy," smiles Amy. "Basically Kain is just pissed off because he was wronged. He realizes that he was really screwed over again and again. Everything that happened to him was the result of someone else's machinations. That's why he's such a fatalist. That's why he believes there is no such thing as free will."
"I've also been reading a lot of theology," she explains, pointing to a huge pile of books that are bending the shelves on a bookcase near her door. "There's a branch of pre- and early-Christian religious thought called 'Gnosticism' which has some bearing on the philosophy behind Soul Reaver. The fundamental idea is that the physical world is inherently corrupt, a tyranny of lies ruled by a false creator god." She pulls out a book, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism, by Kurt Rudolph. "Gnostics viewed the endless wheel of fate, the cycle of death and rebirth, as an inescapable prison from which the 'divine spark' in man yearns to be liberated," she explains as the book hits the desk with a thump. "The word 'gnosis' means knowledge. To live in the material world and not perceive the lie is to live in ignorance, essentially in slavery. The divine spark is man's yearning for knowledge, which brings transcendence. This theological concept is percolating under the whole game. Redemption is inextricably linked with knowledge—that's the key. Raziel's redemption is ultimately dependent on learning the truth behind everything.""Kain comes to the story from a position of knowledge and Raziel comes from a position of ignorance," she continues. "As in any conflict-driven story, the crisis that develops is that ultimately someone is going to have to change, to reach an epiphany. So we need to look at who is the steadfast character that's going to alter the protagonist's perception of reality. When you look at it this way—when you make the 'villain' the steadfast character and the 'hero' the character who has to have the epiphany, it exposes the inadequacy of these terms. Which is why I prefer 'protagonist' and 'antagonist'. It's going to be interesting to see how players interpret 'good' and 'evil' within the context of Soul Reaver 2's story."
PlayStation2 Goodness[]
Although still very early in development, the levels that the designers show us are breathtaking. The gothic architecture has a more solid, "real" feel to it. The environments feel larger and more substantial than those in the original and there's a much greater level of detail throughout. "Environmentally we can have four or five times the detail of Soul Reaver," Amy explains as we enthuse about a particularly impressive level filled with crumbling pillars and almost Mediterranean-looking architecture. When we see Raziel moving within the environment it's certainly pretty convincing—and there don't appear to be any problems with frame-rate or any of the graphical touches that are coming under fire from some areas of the PS2 development community. "I don't want to sound vicariously cocky, since I'm not a programmer, but we haven't had many problems with the PS2 hardware so far. Our guys are very clever."
While it doesn't sound like very much, one of the biggest changes this time is that everything is rendered in its entirety this time. Dig out your old copy of Soul Reaver and check out any area where there's a door or a window. It always looks impressive on the outside doesn't it? But you can never see inside the buildings. Check out the entrance to a cave, and the tunnel always twists to the side so you can't see inside. These are all tricks the designers use to hide the limitations of the hardware. You won't see that kind of thing in Soul Reaver 2. Smash a window and you can see into the room beyond...peer into the mouth of a cavern and you can see into the depths. Everything's in plain sight. "Because of the new technology we, as developers, are losing all of our excuses for not providing the best experience possible," Amy laughs. Fog isn't used a way of obscuring your view either...the ugly pea-soupers that have obscured so much detail in so many PlayStation games, including Soul Reaver, are no longer necessary. "We just use fog as a way of creating an eerie atmosphere now," Amy explains. "We don't need to use it to hide inadequacies anymore. It's exciting to be able to create these environments with the level of detail that we always imagined."Reaving[]
Much of the player's motivation throughout the first game was to help Raziel develop his abilities in order to performs certain tasks. Kicking ass inevitably helped Raziel's cause. This time though, the blue boy is pretty bad-ass right from the start. So, dah-ling...what's my motivation? "Rather than modifying Raziel's 'physical' abilities this time, we're building a lot of the mechanics around the Reaver itself," Amy explains. "The elemental Reaver enhancements are central to this game. There are seven elemental forges hidden throughout Nosgoth (dark, spirit, light, fire, earth, air and water), which provide a secondary, parallel quest. The story occupies Raziel's primary quest, but to progress you'll have to find all of the elemental forges," she enthuses. "Fictionally, the forges were purpose-built to test the bearer of the Reaver. You must discover the location of the forge and solve the central puzzle which activates it—once this is accomplished, you can 'baptize' the Reaver in the forge. The elementally enhanced Reaver provides new abilities which enable the player to access new areas of the game, and interact with the environment in new ways." So how does this work? "Say you forge the Reaver in the Light Forge—it will remain imbued with light, as long as Raziel stays in material and the Reaver remains active. Every time the Reaver is deactivated, it returns to its basic form—but once forged, the elemental potential of the Reaver remains. At the moment of forging, 'satellite' elemental fonts throughout the game are simultaneously activated. These fonts allow the player to re-imbue the Reaver with the associated element. This is hard to explain—the best analogy is in Mario 64, where you see all the inactive 'cap blocks' and you know you'll be able to return to that location later, with a new ability. These are like the inactive elemental fonts in Soul Reaver 2. Just as hitting the large 'cap switches' in Mario activates all the cap blocks of the same color, activating an elemental forge turns on all the related elemental fonts throughout the world. This replaces the whole glyph spell system from SR1. We've decided to eliminate the glyph spells this time, as they didn't really work the way we wanted them to in the last game. Because the glyphs only had offensive purpose, you didn't actually need them to get through the game, which was unfortunate. All the acquired mechanics in Soul Reaver 2 will be necessary to complete the game."
In terms of gameplay mechanics, if there was one thing that the original pushed a little far it was the whole block-moving thing. Are the puzzles still going to be worked this way? "Blocks were our fall-back puzzle element and we ended up overusing them somewhat. For Soul Reaver 2 we've generalized the object-interaction system so that Raziel can contextually manipulate just about any object in the world—including being able to carry and place puzzle objects. The designers and animators can autonomously create any object-interaction scenario they can dream up. Which means that we're only limited now by our creativity and our schedule, because Raziel can interact with the environment in a basically infinite variety of ways. It's much more of a graphic adventure in that respect now."Soul Reaver 3?[]
A Brief History of Nosgoth[]
BEFORE RECORDED HISTORY
- The genesis of the Pillars of Nosgoth—the nine Pillars that reach high into the skies, and deep into the earth (representing Mind, Dimension, Conflict, Nature, Energy, Time, States, Death, and—at the center of all of them binding them together—Balance) which are intrinsically and supernaturally tied to the spiritual and physical "health" of the land.
- The formation of the Circle of Nine—a body of sorcerers entrusted with the safekeeping of the Pillars, each sorcerer serving one of the Pillars and representing the principle that it embodies. Just as the origin of the Pillars is seemingly lost to history, the genesis of the Circle of Nine is also unknown. As long as the Pillars have existed, there has been a body of sorcerers sworn to protect them. When a member dies, the supernatural force behind the Pillars calls a worthy successor, who is destined from birth to fulfill that role.
- The mystical sword known as the Soul Reaver is forged. Later to have more significance.
- The era of Janos Audron—a creature reputed to have been the greatest vampire that ever lived.
- The human Vorador is born
- Vorador is turned; he becomes a vampire
NOSGOTH'S EARLY HISTORY
- The human Raziel is born
- The formation of the Sarafan (a monastic order of warrior-priests, charged with the eradication of the vampires) by the Circle and the crusade to counter the "vampire menace." Raziel, Malek, Turel, Dumah, Rahab, Zephon and Melchiah command the armies.
- The Vampire Purges. Thousands of vampires killed.
- The Sarafan hunt down and destroy the vampires.
- The death of Janos Audron. He is murdered, his heart torn "throbbing and bleeding" from his body.
- Vorador takes his revenge upon the Circle. He infiltrates their stronghold and murders six of the sorcerers, before humiliating the Sarafan general Malek (the Pillar of Conflict) in combat.
- The necromancer Mortanius (one of the surviving Circle members, and the Pillar of Death) punishes Malek for his failure to protect the Circle, by fusing his soul into a magical suit of armor.
- The death of the Sarafan commanders
- The Pillars cull new successors
- Vorador retreats from the world of human affairs, ensconcing himself in his remote mansion.
PRE-BLOOD OMEN HISTORY
- The necromancer Mortanius is possessed by a dark entity known as Hash'ak'gik. Their two wills struggle for dominance of Mortanius' body—at times Mortanius maintains a modicum of control; at other times Hash'ak'gik manipulates him to do evil like a sinister puppeteer.
- Ariel—the Pillar of Balance—is murdered, apparently at Mortanius' hands. It is actually (surprise!) Hash'ak'gik—in the guise of Mortanius—who assassinates Ariel.
- Ariel's murder drives her beloved, Nupraptor (the Pillar of the Mind), insane with grief. In his agony, he unleashes a telepathic assault which ripples across the land of Nosgoth, infecting the other members of the Circle (who are all symbiotically connected) with his madness.
- With the infection of Nupraptor's madness, the Circle—who, as the "Protectors of Hope" are sworn to preserve the land—are now poisoning the land with their deranged sorcery.
- The human Kain is born—the son of one of Nosgoth's most noble families. He is (unknowingly to him) marked from birth as Ariel's successor; it is his destiny to take her place as the Pillar of Balance.
- The Pillars reflect their patrons' corruption, growing gray and corroded. For Nosgoth to be preserved, the infection must be completely eliminated. How to do this? The entire Circle of Nine, now wholly corrupted, must die so that the Pillars may cull new successors from the populace, and the land may be healed with their purity.
- The nobleman Kain departs from his home city of Coorhagen on a journey across Nosgoth.
THE EVENTS OF BLOOD OMEN
- Mortanius orchestrates Kain's assassination—Mortanius is in control for now; not Hash'ak'gik. In the village of Ziegsturhl, Kain is ambushed by brigands, who murder him by impaling him with a sword.
- Kain's body is interred in a crypt west of Ziegsturhl.
- Kain awakens in the underworld, where Mortanius offers to revive him, so that Kain may take revenge upon his assassins. Kain, heedless of the cost, accepts the necromancer's offer. The catch: in order to rejoin the world of the living, Kain is reborn as a vampire.
- Kain awakens, and begins his "unlife" as a vampire.
- Kain finds his assassins and kills them, getting his revenge—but Mortanius drives him on to the Pillars, saying that the brigands were only the instruments of his murder, not the cause.
- Kain visits the decaying Pillars for the first time, meets the spectre Ariel, and learns the nature of his quest. The Circle—the sorcerers poisoning Nosgoth—must be destroyed for the land to be healed and the Pillars righted. Ariel promises him release (and peace) when the Balance is restored.
- Following Ariel's direction, Kain hunts down and kills the Circle members one by one, returning the "tokens" of their service in order to heal each Pillar in turn. The mentalist Nupraptor is Kain's first victim.
- Kain confronts the immortal warrior Malek in his frozen, bleak stronghold, but Malek eludes him.
- Kain meets the Oracle of Nosgoth, a reclusive soothsayer who holds court in the arctic caves.
- The Oracle warns Kain of the legions of the Nemesis attacking from the north, of the bereaved King Ottmar of Willendorf, helpless to withstand their attack. He gives Kain some of Malek's history, including his defeat centuries ago at the hands of the vampire Vorador. Kain, intrigued, asks for more information about Vorador—the Oracle directs him to Vorador's mansion. The Oracle is in fact Moebius the Time Streamer, member of the Circle of Nine (representing the Pillar of Time). He uses the guise of the Oracle to influence pilgrims and orchestrate events.
- Kain meets Vorador, Nosgoth's oldest vampire.
- Vorador recounts the stories of the Sarafan purges, and his revenge upon the Circle and Malek.
- Kain discovers a mysterious Time Streaming Device, planted by Moebius (the Pillar of Time).
- Kain cleanses each of the pillars, leaving only Balance at the end.
- Ariel appears and reveals to Kain that he is the Pillar of Balance, and that the only way the Pillars can be healed is for him to sacrifice himself to the Pillar. She presents him with the final, climactic decision—sacrifice himself to heal the world, or refuse the sacrifice and ensure the world's corruption. Kain chooses the latter path, deciding to rule the world in its damnation rather than commit himself to oblivion.
AFTER BLOOD OMEN
- Kain, appreciating the irony of his decision, sets the ruined Pillars as the seat of his fledgling empire, with the unrestored Balance Pillar as the base of his throne. Kain establishes his empire by recruiting six lieutenants. Kain, raised by necromancy, cannot "turn" a vampire via the traditional blood gift. By breathing a small portion of his vampire soul into a corpse, he draws the corpse's soul back into the body—the corpse is then revived as a fledgling vampire. In an act of calculated blasphemy, Kain raids the tomb of the six martyred Sarafan commanders. Their well-entombed corpses—though long dead—have been spared the corruption of the grave. Going from crypt to crypt, he breathes his reviving gift into each of the Sarafan corpses in turn. Thus he raises his six first-born "sons" as the lieutenants of his fledgling empire.
- Raziel is raised first, and thus receives the greatest portion of Kain's gift. The six lieutenants have been too long dead to remember much of their human lives; they are ignorant of their Sarafan roots, or of Kain's blasphemous private joke.
- Kain's empire grows. The six lieutenants recruit clans of their own, "turning" the corpses of their human victims to do their bidding.
- Over the centuries, each of the vampires undergoes a series of evolutionary adaptations. These evolutionary "growth spurts" are preceded by a near-hibernatory period of retreat, from which the vampire emerges transformed.
- Raziel emerges from one of these evolutionary hibernations having grown wings. He returns to the Sanctuary of the Clans to present himself to Kain, and reveal his latest gift...
From Smurf to Vampire[]
"Soul Reaver is a class act," boasts Bell. "A professional director [Gordon Hunt, Mad About You] is a luxury, and the project fares better for the input."
And how does it compare, we wnder, to animation work? "Acting for a video game brings with it a different set of rules. For all intents and purposes, an animated show is equivalent to performing for radio. Sometimes you work with a full cast and other times by yourself, but you always work in real time. By that I mean, you are performing as the character in a situation and at a speed not unlike that of an on-camera gig. With a video game script, you need to be clear enough that the players understand their roles in the action. You try not to go over the top. No room for the method here."But while Crystal may be serious about Bell, Bell is far from serious himself, tossing out comments about how he "slept with everyone on Star Trek including the caterers...especially the caterers!" (We're pretty sure he's kidding.) And when we ask what he thinks of Soul Reaver, Bell's response is characteristically outlandish: "One evening, I decided to play Soul Reaver and only stopped when my wife announced that our daughter had graduated college. She was 12 when I sat down."
Finding the Perfect Noise[]
"This may not sound like much," says sound designer and composer Kurt Harland (pictured above; you may recognize him from the new wave band Information Society) as he plays a recording of a crunching Coke can, "but if we drop it a few octaves we get this." The unmistakable sound of a sliding stone block fills the studio. "It's a long, tedious process," says Harland, "but it's worth it."