Beta Comparison - Introduction - Soul Reaver - Legacy of Kain: The Lost Worlds

Beta Comparison - Introduction

I have been studying Soul Reaver for quite a long time, and three years ago I posted a beta vs retail screenshot comparison on my blog. However, I didn't include any details or observations in a coherent written form. Recently, Ben Lincoln asked me to write an article for The Lost Words and we thought it would be great to share the knowledge about the betas with other LOK fans in an article. This new comparison analysis includes higher quality images than the original one and lots of new info, which took me about two weeks to compile and write down.

Out of all five Legacy of Kain games, why did I choose Soul Reaver? Even before its release, the game fascinated me with its new and fresh ideas - deep story about vampires, no loading times, shifting between realms, incredible architecture, fun close range combat, great graphics, exploring the decaying world, atmospheric music and precise controls. It became my favourite game not only out of LOK games but also in general. Ever since I have started to read about the interesting findings concerning the deleted Soul Reaver content posted by Ben on TLW, I was intrigued by its depth even more. The amount of effort that went into this game is truly felt in each area. I hope you will regard this article as homage to this great game, which still remains in our memories after all those years.

I have tried to research each area of the game as in-depth as possible and I hope you will find this article interesting in understanding of the changes that Soul Reaver underwent during its development. I also included my personal notes and ideas after some paragraphs, but please note that they are just my interpretation and might not represent the true intentions of the developers.

The content is divided into these separate articles: