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Shadow20002
11-06-2003, 04:21 PM
Legacy of Kain: Defiance Designer Diary 2
Richard Lemarchand, Senior Game Designer

When project director Amy Hennig and the team at Crystal Dynamics set out to create Soul Reaver in 1997, one of the first seeds of inspiration came from a little-known character in a weird silent movie from 1920 called The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.

The film is one of the most famous examples of German Expressionism – a filmmaking movement that wanted to break away from the sober and theatrical conventions of the day, and make surreal, dreamlike entertainment – not unlike the goals of the Soul Reaver team! The haunted, sunken look of the central character Cesare – a cadaverous, sleepwalking mystery man - provided some early visual inspiration for Raziel.

Also, it’s no coincidence that there’s a similarity between the warped and slanted sets in Caligari, and the dizzily twisted aspects of Soul Reaver’s Spectral Plane. Vampire fans will be interested to know that Caligari was a big influence on the infamous bloodsucker movie Nosferatu, and continues to inspire Hollywood filmmakers to this day.

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