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 Raziel 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, philosphically, 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 inadvertently, 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 ipossible to escape preordained fate? And it's interesting to layer this quesiton 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."
Leaving the mind-boggling complications of time travel behind for a moment, Amy continues to explore the relationship between Kain and Raziel and the discussion moves onto theology, the concept of good versus evil and redemption. Ahh, a much lighter load. No one could ever say that video game design isn't deep.
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 buy ever thinks he's a bad buy," 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 intpret 'good' and 'evil' within the context of Soul Reaver 2's story."
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. (...) 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. (...)
Although Soul Reaver 2 is still a way off from completion, we have to discuss the possibilities of further games. (...) "The plan is that in the future we can continue to explore different aspects of Nosgoth's history, with different characters. This is such a rich universe with so much mythology and backstory, and so many interesting players. The analogy we use internally is that we want to establish something like they did with Star Trek or Star Wars - where you have a consistent universe and 'mythology' which can be explored from many different perspectives."
Crystal Dynamics is serious about their voice work. Just check out the expansive resume of Michael Bell, the voice of Raziel. Here's a guy who's gone head to head with opponents ranging from Jean-Luc Picard (as Groppler Zorn in ST:TNG's premiere episode) to the evil wizard Gargamel (as Grouchy, Lazy, and Handy Smurf in The Smurfs) and has had roles in everything from The Monkees to G.I. Joe.
"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 wonder, 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."
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