Introduced in 1999 as the lead and playable character of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, he was created by Amy Hennig, Seth Carus and Arnold Ayala of Crystal Dynamics.

Raziel's story and appearance were inspired by several influences, including the 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the Hindu god Vishnu.

The character of Raziel had a precursor in the protagonist of Shifter, a Paradise Lost-inspired game proposal worked on by Crystal Dynamics' Amy Hennig, Seth Carus and Arnold Ayala.

[4] Dozens of sketches were produced to shape his final design; the Hindu god Vishnu provided the basis for his blue color, and his wings were intended to evoke those of fallen angels.

In the series' fictional universe, he is described as an "ex-vampire", a "wraith", and a "devourer of souls",[1][5][6] characterized by his skeletal figure, brown cowl, tattered wings and tridactyl claws and feet.

[15] Raziel discovers that, when they were human, he and the other lieutenants were the leaders of the ancient vampire-hunting Sarafan brotherhood; Kain found their corpses and raised them, unwitting, as vampires, in a calculated act of blasphemous irony.

[20][21][22] In hopes of learning more about his destiny, Raziel time travels back to the era of the Sarafan, where the ancient vampire Janos Audron gifts him the Reaver—a younger version of the Soul Reaver blade, before it housed a ravenous spirit.

He was also featured in Top Cow's promotional comics for Soul Reaver and Defiance,[39] and appears alongside Kain as a playable character in downloadable content (DLC) for 2010's Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

"[46] Official UK PlayStation Magazine similarly welcomed Raziel's debut in Soul Reaver, showcasing him on the cover of issue 43; his story and in-game appearance were endorsed, and in a comparison with Tomb Raider III, his free-flowing character animation was described as making "Lara look like a glove puppet".

[52] In contrast, Douglass C. Perry of IGN felt Raziel's (and Kain's) dialogue in Soul Reaver 2 was overdone, stating that "overwritten text makes them sound like caffeine-imbued English students verbally jousting in their first semester in college", but liked the advancement and rebalancing of Raziel's personality and aggressiveness, and enjoyed his depiction, stating that he "looks magnificently decripid [sic]".

[53] Steve Faragher for Official PlayStation 2 Magazine UK likewise wrote that "Raziel and Kain philosophizing endlessly about their destinies, or talking about life, death, demons and free will [feels] rather more like a particularly depressing episode of EastEnders than an action/adventure game," but he considered Raziel "an undeniably intriguing lead character whose invisible battles with his own inner demons may turn out to be as interesting as any of his battles with physical foes.

[61] In 2012, Houston Press listed the character's demise in Legacy of Kain: Defiance among the top five most heartbreaking video game deaths,[62] while IGN also listed Raziel and Kain among gaming's most notorious anti-heroes and "complex characters with a great backstory, and truly awesome anti-heroes, be they fighting against each other to enslave or save the world, or teaming up against greater threats".

[63] That same year, GamesRadar ranked him as the 56th "most memorable, influential, and badass" protagonist in games, adding that "as pissed-off vampire antiheroes go, few wear the title as proudly as Raziel".

[64] The Washington Post's Gene Park regretted in 2021 that "while Metal Gear needs no introduction, it’s been 18 years since Raziel snarled his vows of revenge with a Shakespearean lilt".

[65] Darksiders' creative director Joe Madureira, former Capcom artist and game designer Akiman, and Clash of the Titans concept artist Tsvetomir Georgiev have also created fan art interpretations of the character,[66][67][68] while Ben Starr, voice actor for Final Fantasy XVI protagonist Clive Rosfield, singled Raziel out as the other video game character he would most like to play.

[69] I couldn’t say who originally came up with the idea [to make Uncharted protagonist Nathan Drake vulnerable and flawed], but I do know, having worked with Amy for a long time, that this is an ongoing interest of hers.

"[54] In Debugging Game History: A Critical Lexicon, Marcelo Alejandro Aranda instead links Raziel's journey of discovery to that of Final Fantasy Tactics' protagonist Ramza Beoulve: "as happens to Ramza in FFT, Raziel's encounter with the past changes his perspective on his circumstances in the present, something that Hennig intended because she believes 'that time travel is ultimately a journey of epiphanies, where the protagonist realizes the role that he already played in history'".

"[72] Writing for Game Developer, Ben Serviss praised the effectiveness of Raziel's characterization in spite of his grotesque appearance: "you essentially play a zombie vampire who runs around killing monsters and eating their souls for energy.

Peppiatt felt that "Raziel – at once a sympathetic character and hateful for his self-righteousness – is the perfect counterpoint to Kain, a hero playing the role of a tyrant king.