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Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver currently not buyable on Steam, devs say to expect "important updates soon"

Vae_Victis

Banned
Since I think yesterday, going to the Steam page of LoK Soul Reaver the game is no longer for sale, and a note has been added:

Square Enix has temporarily removed this title from sale to work on some important updates. Please check back soon!

HD re-release? Remaster? License expired? :messenger_grinning_sweat:


EDIT: probably absolutely nothing worth talking about, see here.

Ecf9ZMKWoAAef64.jpg



EDIT 2: It's even worse than expected, the game will likely come out of this in a worse state than it is now. The above meme becomes more and more appropriate.
 
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It aged poorly so a remake would be better but this is Square Enix we're talking about so I have little hope of this turning out great even if its a remake.
 

Vae_Victis

Banned
Doing a bit more digging around, I think GoG is working on an updated version of the game with some bugfixes/better compatibility with modern systems.


I really appreciate the offer of having your fix in the GOG version but I'm afraid that this wont be possible. We were thinking about this but there seems to be too much gray area (legally speaking) in this fix currently. For example the bik files require a separate license and the intro is not the original PC one (it's actually better). SquareEnix was also notified about this already and they expect us to provide them with a 'legally clean' fixed version of the game. Meaning that we needed to start a project to create our own solutions for Soul Reaver. This project is currently ongoing and should end in 2 weeks when the updated version of the game will be released.

The new version will have a number of quality of live and compatibility fixes but it will not have any 'enhancements' from your fix like the higher resolution intro, New Game+, achievements etc. What we could do however, is to highlight your work on the game's product page with a link to a forum post where users will be able to enhance their experience if they choose to by using your product.

I realise that technically we won't be able to match your work (especially since we will just making the game work and look as it did back in the day without making any improvements), but we will do our best here! When we are done I would greatly appreciate your opinion about the build and maybe draw our attention to things that we might have missed. Your expertise would be very much appreciated!

The decision has been made to make Soul Reaver 100% our work. However, we will make sure that the compatibility with your update is maintained and I would really appreciate if we could let the users know that if they would like to enhance their experience even further, than your patch exists (a link on the product page would be nice).

The update talked about in the comment from the person from GoG is a fan-made patch called "Soul Reaver Enhanced", which did much more than GoG themselves are implementing, but they can't go as far because licenses and legal reasons and Square Enix being cheap and lazy.

So basically, it's just a re-issue with a better wrapper to make it run more smoothly and stably on modern computers.
 
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No, let it rest, Legacy of Kain: Defiance's ending was open but was satisfying IMO.

With Tony Jay's (The Elder God) death and both Simon Templeman (Kain) and Michael Bell (Razial) past their 60's/70's i think the series should remain dead, if you want to revist the series use the setting but not the characters/story ALA Deus Ex
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I wonder if not too many people know about this: https://store.playstation.com/en-us...&psappver=18.02.1&smcid=psapp:link menu:store

It’s been on their classics page for ages now. Same with Soul Reaver 1 & 2. A good time if you’re looking to play it on your Vita.

 

Soodanim

Member
I wouldn’t mind playing this again if there’s some proper patches, playing about a year ago without any existing (or at least me not knowing they existed) was a bit of a pain in terms of controller support and a few other things, but it’s absolutely worth playing (even more so with a patch).

It’s a damn shame most of the key voice talent is dead, and as Rean said it might not be the best idea to make that last game because of it, despite how much is love to see the story finished (I know roughly what would have happened anyway).

This series will always be on my wish list of reboots, with the wish including that as many original writers like Amy Hennig write it and plan it out like it deserves, and the dev studio is a team of people who really understand and appreciate what it did and don’t just make it a vapid, empty shell getting by on the name.

Maybe they could also make Blood Omen 2 worth playing, and not a boring lump of a game I couldn’t spend more than an hour with.
 
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Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
Please be excited!

seyvec9.gif


A full on remake ala Bluepoint would appreciated.
 
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theclaw135

Banned
Doing a bit more digging around, I think GoG is working on an updated version of the game with some bugfixes/better compatibility with modern systems.




The update talked about in the comment from the person from GoG is a fan-made patch called "Soul Reaver Enhanced", which did much more than GoG themselves are implementing, but they can't go as far because licenses and legal reasons and Square Enix being cheap and lazy.

So basically, it's just a re-issue with a better wrapper to make it run more smoothly and stably on modern computers.

Is that quasi-official then? Square Enix can't incorporate the mod, but will ensure the game is compatible with it.
 
DUN DUN DUUUUUUN

"Kain was deified. The clans tell tales of him. Few know the truth.

DUUUUUUUUUUN DUN DUN

He was mortal once. As we were all... however it was his contempt for humanity that drove him to create me and my brethren."

DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUN DUN
 

Athreous

Member
I'd day one it if a remake or a good remaster is released... The series has so much lore, good characters... Please, Square, remake this jewel and bring it with the same or better quality of Tomb Raider >_<
 

Vae_Victis

Banned
Reading more thoroughly through what wrace wrote on Steam, it sound like the new version of the game might in the end be a downgrade compared to the current one.



Apparently there is some legal shenanigans afoot with the cinematics as .bink files, Square Enix doesn't want to pay/renew the licence with RAD Tools so they will be replaced by the older version .rpl files at a worse quality.

wrace is also almost certain that through what is being changed two more critical bugs will appear, that would respectively mess up the sound over time and freeze the game due to an issue (I think) with hidden menu overlaps during gameplay. These bugs would be linked to the .exe of the game, so a mod that fixes them would basically have to revert the game to the previous release before this update.

It sounds like the people working on the game don't have access to the source code at all. Possibly not even Square Enix does, or they likely wouldn't have contacted an external team for the job without providing it.
 
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Tomb raider style reboot or bust.

Tried it recently on vita. Dont have it in me to finish it in retro form.

Loved everything about it except its too old and janky now.
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
Not holding my breath. I'd be happy if they would rework all of the LoK titles so they run on PC without any issues. I could not complete SR2 on Steam because it kept crashing at some point. Defiance is bascially unplayable because it has no proper controller support. Fix this and I'd be happy.

Remake/Reboot? Is it 1st of April yet?
 
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