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Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver Fans Uncover Massive Cache Of Cut Content

New fan-made videos explore newly-discovered content that was cut from the classic PS1 adventure.

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Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is one of the most beloved action-adventure games of the PlayStation 1 era. However, it's also well-known for its underwhelming ending, which makes Halo 2's "finishing this fight" cutscene look generous by comparison. If you're familiar with Soul Reaver, you probably know that the game's final third was slashed due to time and budget constraints, and evidence of that cut content has trickled out over the years.

Now, however, a group of die-hard Legacy of Kain fans have uncovered a large trove of unused content for the game, thanks to the discovery of several alpha versions of Soul Reaver. These include several areas that are missing from the game entirely, as well as unused boss fights with a human priestess and Raziel's conspicuously-absent brother Turel. According to the Lost Worlds, Soul Reaver was originally supposed to end with Raziel defeating Kain for a third time, absorbing his soul, and using the Silenced Cathedral to destroy all of the vampires for good. Many of the concepts cut from Soul Reaver were later used in the franchise's fifth entry, Legacy of Kain: Defiance.

Though fans have clamored for a remaster or a port of Soul Reaver to modern consoles, series owner Square Enix has voiced no plans for any such projects. According to reports, a sixth entry in the franchise, Dead Sun, was under development for three years by British developer Climax, but Square Enix cancelled it. The multiplayer portion of Dead Sun later became the ill-fated free-to-play game Nosgoth, which was cancelled in 2016.

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squishytia

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Edited By squishytia

Heh. A potentially badass game that had its development cut and its budget slashed, resulting in a lackluster ending. Now where have I seen this before? Ah yes, now I remember: Xenogears.

Oh, and look at that, Square(soft) made that one too. Color me shocked.

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GodDogs

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GodDogs

@squishytia: lol, back then Square didn't own Soul Reaver. It was Eidos, which Square bought years later.

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GodDogs

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GodDogs

I am one such die hard fan. I miss this series so much. There is nothing else quite like it. I wish they would remake it or remaster it. Or a TRUE sequel like Dark Prophecy (not that Dead Sun crap). Square doesn't know this IP at all so they don't care.

And I'm still waiting for a Blood Omen rerelease on GOG/Steam :(

Awesome job digging up all the cut content from Ben Lincoln and Raina Audron. Amazing that after 20 years, fans are still digging things up.

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DAOWAce

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DAOWAce

Another IP Square Enix doesn't deserve to hold anymore.

They only care about what's making the most money possible, and even then they're completely stupid about it (ex. FF7 remake taking over a decade to start after being teased on PS3).

And thinking games that sell millions are "commercial failures".

They don't patch many things once it releases and are focusing on mobile and milking their MMOs (which still run on ancient hardware and software).

Worse than EA in my books now.

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Rekonym

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Rekonym

Maybe a fans / community project in the veins of the 'restored' content work that was done for Knights of the Old Republic 2 could be done for Soul Reaver? However, Soul Reaver's cut content assets might not be all accessible, so it might be tough to do something like that.

Just hoping it might happen one day.

I never played Soul Reaver 2 though, is it possible that some of the cut content from the first game made it into the sequel one way or another? Or maybe at least some ideas from the first making it into the sequel?

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GodDogs

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GodDogs

@rekonym: yes, a lot of the reaver enhancements that were cut in SR1 were reimagined and put into SR2. But, that game also had cut content, which was then also reimagined and put into the next game, Defiance.

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kintoneo

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Edited By kintoneo

@rekonym: not in Soul Reaver 2: "Raziel defeating Kain for a third time, absorbing his soul, and using the Silenced Cathedral to destroy all of the vampires for good."

Some of the concepts are explored/subverted in Defiance.

TBH I never finished Reaver 2 either, because of a game-breaking bug & having to start over.

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kintoneo

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kintoneo

"series owner Square Enix has voiced no plans for any such projects."

Too bad, I would definitely be interested in a port, remaster, or remake of this series.

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deactivated-64efdf49333c4

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deactivated-64efdf49333c4

@kintoneo: Modern Square is essentially EA Japan, so you can forget about seeing the return of a niche, non-Japanese series.

This is one of those cases where the fans are just going to have to remake the game themselves, but not announce the project until it is too late for Square to C&D it.

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deactivated-5f5fbd033c899

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deactivated-5f5fbd033c899

As an old man once said "They don't make 'em like they used to". This was a great series with some of the best dialog and characters ever to appear in a video game. The gameplay was unique and playing a vampire had never been more fun. This series needs to be brought back!!

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deactivated-64efdf49333c4

@Roach: Correct. It needs to be brought back, but not by Square. Someone needs to pull a Battlefront 3 and figure out a way to use the assets to finish the game.

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