The Water Forge (Soul Reaver 2)

The Water Forge
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Water Reaver symbol
Cut from	Soul Reaver 2 (2001)

The Water Forge was a Reaver Forge planned to appear in Soul Reaver 2. Within the Forge, Raziel was to obtain the Water Reaver, an augmentation which later appeared in Legacy of Kain: Defiance. The Forge is a deleted area 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 Water 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 Water in the Water Forge, creating the Water 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 Water symbol can still be observed in game on the dais of the Subterranean Pillars Chamber.^{[Soul Reaver 2]}

In contrast to similarly deleted Earth and Spirit forges comparatively little is definitively known of the Water Forge. The details of the forge are unknown, no images of the area have been made public and it is unclear how far its development progressed before the area was removed.

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. Water would have a series of fountains and cisterns"

―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.

A Water Forge does exist in the Vampire Citadel (and is visited in Legacy of Kain: Defiance), but, like its equivalents, is distinct from the dedicated Water Forge.^{[Defiance][Defiance/7][Defiance/8]} Because of its disinclusion in the games, the Forge's canonical status is dubious.

Notes

• In a similar manner to the various Fire Reaver enhancements, versions of the Water Reaver and its forge were planned to appear in every game in the Soul Reaver arc. In addition to the Water Forge and Water Reaver that appeared in Legacy of Kain: Defiance, a Water forge and Water Reaver were also planned for inclusion in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, but ultimately cut due to time constraints - although its appearance in Soul Reaver was more related to the Glyph-style Reavers from that game and is possibly not an Ancient vampire creation for this reason.^{[Soul Reaver]}
• 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 Water Reaver does appear to have a minor blue usage effect).^{[Soul Reaver 2]} A different placeholder, arguably based on the Dark Reaver, was accessible through debug menus on the earlier 'Air Forge demo'.

See also

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

Browse

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