Elder God

The Elder God is a Demiurge in the Legacy of Kain universe. Very much taking inspiration from Lovecraft in his design and Gnosticism in his archetype representation. From within the Soul Reaver 1, 2, and now Defiance story, he’s seen as an ultimate manipulator from beyond the physical realm, lurking in the shadows, playing side against side and gaining sustenance from feasting on, or as he calls it, the “spinning” of souls into the Wheel of Fate. When a soul dies, and it returns to him, he devours from it all the memories and experiences of that soul’s former life, then they are birthed anew, completely ignorant of their prior existence. When Raziel is cast into the Abyss and his resulting ruined Wraith form shows up in the Elder God’s lair at the bottom of the Abyss, he creates a bond with Raziel, making him his reaper of souls and setting him on his path of revenge against Kain.

There are a lot of twists and turns, and this incredible monster, voiced by the late and great Tony Jay, was a joy to bring to life for the Remaster!

I started a remake of the Elder God years ago, though it was left in a very rudimentary state. I had a much larger blob of him than what we could use in the Defiance model, which is very specific to where and how it fits into the environment. Mine was made to bring the original version of him in the Soul Reaver 1 intro to life, when Raziel awakes from his torment in the Abyss, now in the Spectral Realm, and the Elder God’s voice booms at him, “Raziel! You are worthy!” As he’s shown and described in the games, he’s a giant squid (although, elements of him seem more derived from octopus references), amorphous, with enumerable amounts of eyes and tentacles all about him. There is always a core element we focus on in the games: a central patch of eyes and tentacles, like in Soul Reaver 2, or, here in Defiance, a more formed blob with a central eye and “eyebrow” framed by a main tentacle and few others, either rigged 3D animated ones, or other models baked into the environment levels. In addition to these models, the rest of the area around is then covered in environmental textures with more eyes, skin, and slimy, fleshy bits. Some of these scroll in an unsettling animation, making the very walls and ceilings feel like they are a part of him they undulate.

Since there are both environment models bakes into the levels and 3D models we are remaking with full materials, I had to ensure that what I made could be adequately baked down into simple diffuse textures for the levels that would still feel like it all had the same fidelity and material. The lighting in the game picks up on light and shadow baked into textures, faking a bit of a specular reflection, so the tentacles on the walls and the tubes in the environments can be made to mostly look like the hero versions. I baked the material from Substance Painter down to the UV tiles.

So, the main eyebrow and eye I used various octopus references, more than squid. Their skin and surrounding eye ridge details would fit so well on him. The color is a blend between brown and greens. In game it mostly showed up bathed in green light, which is really more environment vertex lighting it’s picking up that the model, but the play between the browns and greens really comes through in spots, especially later in the game. In fact, that baked vertex lighting became a bit of an issue early on. I did the his body model, but we could not get that to work right, so without the bakes lighting, his model was lit up a bright orange in contrast. For the longest time, I had to actually use the original model with the material baked down to the game’s diffuse texture from my recreation, similar to the level tentacles. It was the only way it was going to work. Luckily, near the end before launch, the lighting was fixed in this area and I could then use the full model. The original promotion of the EG seen in the first launch trailer actually shows the baked version.

The central eye is a play between orange and blue, and some green, which is very close to a lot of the brilliant eyes seen on Octopus and giant squids. Making the model of his tentacles, I added the appropriate suckers to the bottom that was always hinted at, but they never had the fidelity to fully realize before. Getting all of those to bend right on the rigs, with their bone limitation (only 2 bones per vertice, vs. modern games’ 4), was a bit challenging, but they look great in the end. The tentacles are nasty, meaty, and really feel like they are from this Lovecraftian squid nightmare. I am so very happy with the result. It brings this threat fully to life!