This isn't directly related to the prototype, but I had an interesting thought regarding the game's development. Anyone else think the game's time travel premise is really strange? The game was supposed to take place in 1666 but featured two characters from two completely different time periods as the protagonists for no apparent reason. Why not just set the game in either of those three time periods and focus on that? That got me thinking.
According to the game's environment artist, the art team "wasn’t very cohesive and couldn’t agree on a direction". Which makes me wonder if perhaps there were three different, conflicting ideas regarding what the game was going to be about at the beginning of development. Those ideas would be: 1) a game set in the 1400s featuring Sonia, 2) a game set in the 17th century, and 3) a game set in the 1800s featuring Victor. Interestingly enough, coverage regarding this game from around the time of E3 1999, as well as the prototype, completely lack any mention of the game being set in 1666 or featuring time travel. The first mention of those elements (as well as Victor) didn't show up until September 1999. Which could possibly mean that during the time of the E3 demo, the intention was to make a game featuring Sonia as the sole protagonist. At that point, the game had been in development for at least a year and we know it was far from being finished. According to IGN, the game was delayed around June, 1999. Perhaps the higher-ups got desperate at that time and demanded the developers to also incorporate scrapped ideas in the game (like Victor and those environments and enemies that are clearly from the 17th century) in order to speed up development. And afterwards, someone in the development team came up with some BS time travel plot to tie it all together.
I have never seen anyone bring up this theory, so I thought it would be interesting to share. It would make a lot of sense, if true.