Sentry eyes

SR2-Sentry-LightForge — A Sentry Eye Attacks a Thrall

Sentry Eyes, also known as Sentries, were featured in Soul Reaver 2. They were security devices, presumably built by the Ancient Vampires, which required the Dark Reaver to bypass.

Profile

Name: Sentry Eyes
Category: Soul Reaver 2 terms
Introduced: • Template:Icon-SR2 Soul Reaver 2 (2001)
Architects: Likely Ancient vampires
Appearances: Template:Icon-SR2
Related Articles: Dark Reaver (SR2), Darkness, Light Forge (SR2), Reaver bolts, Light crystals, Cracked doors, Engraved stone, Wall buttons, Telekinetic breakables, Glyph seals, Telekinetic switches

Role

Sentries resembled large wall-mounted eyes. When disturbed by Raziel or other creatures, Sentries would produce a brief rain of sparkles before unleashing a fatal blast that was powerful enough to disintegrate Raziel's Material manifestation. Sentry Eyes could be 'blinded' by the Reaver Bolts of the Dark Reaver, which would cause the eyes to roll back allowing Raziel to temporarily pass 'unobserved'.

Raziel first encountered a Sentry in the Light Forge chapter of Soul Reaver 2, where he witnessed one guarding the Light Forge key and destroying a nearby Thrall that had strayed too close. Part of the puzzle of the forge required Raziel to return to the chamber in the Material Realm armed with the Dark Reaver and, following the clues in the chamber, blind the sentry with a Dark Reaver bolt and recover the Light Forge key to activate the forge and imbue the Light Reaver.

Thereafter Razel would encounter Sentry eyes infrequently through the rest of Soul Reaver 2. Often they were seen in forge areas or other Ancient vampire constructions. With three present in the Air forge (one of which defended the entrance to the forge itself) and three present in Janos Audron's Retreat. On each occasion it was necessary to blind the Sentries with Dark Reaver bolts to bypass them

Sentry Eyes were seen only in Soul Reaver 2. With the removal of Reaver bolts from Legacy of Kain: Defiance, Sentries were not seen in further games - although similar 'watcher guardians' that could be nullified with the Dark Reaver were seen in Defiance Switches activated by regular (non-elementally attuned) telekinetic powers were also present in both Blood Omen 2 and Defiance

Background

An early color scheme in trailers
The early coloring in the US Air Forge Demo
early sentry shot effect
The final eye coloring
The final shot effect

In early trailers and the US Air Forge demo, Sentry Eyes can be observed with a notably differet color scheme, where they appear as a white or pale blue sclera with a yellow iris and red pupil. This is changed to yellow sclera and iris with dark blood vessel effects and black pupil in the European release Air forge demo and retail version.

Early Trailers also show that a different effect for the activaton of the devices, with yellow sparks and yellow lightning forks initially beng used in place of the red effects seen in later versions.^[1]^[2]

Notes

Sentry Eyes are not mentioned in dialogue, however they are classified in both the Soul Reaver 2 manual and the Prima Guide where they are labelled as "Sentries" and "Sentry Eyes" respectively with both classing them as "enemies" despite them being inanimate objects.Template:Ref-SR2-ManualTemplate:Ref-SR2-Prima
Sentry Eyes were found in Reaver Forges and Janos' Retreat, likely suggesting Ancient Vampire origin. Sentry Eyes also had yellow irises, a trait of many of Nosgoth's Vampires.
Sentries were only seen in Soul Reaver 2, however similar inanimate 'guardian' constructons were seen in Legacy of Kain: Defiance - these Guardian gargoyles would instantly close doors or raise barriers if an approach was detected and to bypass them Raziel had to use the invisibility Reaver spell of the permanent Dark Reaver.