Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - On this day

The British studio Crystal Dynamics is known today for its Tomb Raider series games, and when we mention Any Hennig we always say that she is a (former) screenwriter of Uncharted games. But Crystal Dynamics and Amy Hennig delivered a very impressive game at the end of the last century, an action-adventure called Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.

It was the second game of the vampire series to develop in parallel with Blood Omen 2 back in 1997. The manufacturer's goal was to move the franchise to the 3D world, but not everything went according to plan after two teams working on Soul Reaver and Blood Omen 2 quarreled. Soul Reaver was postponed for a good year, but came out today, in 1999, for the PlayStation console and PC.

Soul Reaver introduced us to Raziel, a vampire who touched the bottom of his life after betrayal. However, Raziel was (un) fortunately stuck in a state of immortality, that is, between two dimensions - physical and spiritual, and if necessary he could switch from one to another. This ability to switch between dimensions was also the basis for solving many spatial puzzles in the game. The title Soul Reaver was Raziel’s sword that could swallow souls. 

Upon its release, Soul Reaver immediately became a hit due to an interesting story, great atmosphere, but also a good marketing campaign that cost the then unimaginable four million dollars. It was the first game to receive a maximum rating of 10/10 in the domestic gaming magazine PSX.

A few months after its release on PC and PlayStation, Soul Reaver received a version for the SEGA Dreamcast console. That version of the game is still the most graphically convenient today. As you probably know, the Legacy of Cain series is no longer relevant today, but by 2005 it had experienced several more games, including Soul Reaver 2. We remember the last appearance of the vampire Raziel in virtual form in 2010 when he and Cain came as DLC characters for the game Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

The PC version has been removed from sale on Steam for some time but should return in an "updated" release. There are all the frequent rumors that we might soon see a remaster of this game.