Drop your neck linen and start your soul reavin’: Crystal Dynamics is bringing back Soul Reaver.
A rumor originating at VG247 said that Crystal Dynamics is going to reboot the series with a new Soul Reaver to be revealed later this year. The unnamed source claims that the series will receive an overhauled look to reflect the tastes of 2012 rather than the late ‘90s. In all likelihood, this probably means that lead character Raziel will be wearing a hoodie in addition to his trademark scarf.
The story of that former vampire and reaver of souls was first told back in 1999 on the original Playstation and Dreamcast. At the time, the game was placed alongside Tomb Raider amongst Eidos’ successful three-dimensional adventures and it gained quite a following thanks to its goth-via-Image-Comics art and clever puzzles. The Legacy of Kain series of which Soul Reaver was a part disappeared from the video game landscape after 2003’s Legacy of Kain: Defiance.
While there are no further details, a Soul Reaver reboot would certainly fall in line with Square-Enix’s current publishing strategy with Eidos and studio Crystal Dynamics. The publisher has been leveraging Eidos almost exclusively as a tool for resurrecting turn-of-the-century franchises. 2011’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the upcoming Thief 4, and the upcoming Hitman: Absolution are all sequels to games popularized around the turn of the millenium. Crystal Dynamics itself is already working on what it calls a reboot of the Tomb Raider series expected out at the end of the year.
Of course, the extent of that reboot appears to just be making Lara younger and having her moan more. As for what that bodes for the return of Soul Reaver, we’ll have to wait and see.
