by Ben Mapp
Following up on the various fresh leaks regarding Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun, Square Enix recently released a new survey to determine the future of their in-house projects. But beneath the pleas for that Final Fantasy VII HD remake (which the company seem to be saving for a rainy day), filling out the survey made me realise that - however improbable it may seem - Legacy of Kain is still potentially on their radar. With fantasy games such as Dragon Age: Inquisition and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor still dominating sales worldwide, and with The Witcher III: Wild Hunt on its way, I was reminded about just how perfect the climate is for a new installment of this long dormant vampire chronicle.
Following up on the various fresh leaks regarding Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun, Square Enix recently released a new survey to determine the future of their in-house projects. But beneath the pleas for that Final Fantasy VII HD remake (which the company seem to be saving for a rainy day), filling out the survey made me realise that - however improbable it may seem - Legacy of Kain is still potentially on their radar. With fantasy games such as Dragon Age: Inquisition and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor still dominating sales worldwide, and with The Witcher III: Wild Hunt on its way, I was reminded about just how perfect the climate is for a new installment of this long dormant vampire chronicle.
As a series Legacy of Kain introduced many ideas which later became staples within the development of video games. But first let's appreciate things from a more thematic standpoint.
Tell Me Where Else You Can Find Time-Travelling Vampires... Let's Talk Narrative.
Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun - The cancelled 2012 project. With Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy headlining the main fantasy adventure genre for Square Enix, Legacy of Kain (LoK) as a series is distinct and darker than either and deals with some very specific and complicated themes such as fate, destiny, free will, as well as - perhaps far more abstractly - the possible consequences of changing events from one's personal history.
Dead Sun, the cancelled LoK project from 2012, was described by its developers as 'if HBO did Zelda', which gives a very clear visual on how things work in Nosgoth, the fantasy world where LoK is set. Pivotal characters die all throughout the story, with some being resurrected later on but only to die again in a far more brutal fashion than before. The two playable protagonists of the series, Kain and later Raziel, traverse time in the subsequent games as well, shifting events of their own history around and then witnessing the catastrophic effect said changes have on the rest of the world and its characters. It's all in a desperate attempt to understand how the rules of this gothic world work, why they are actually in place and who - or, more appropriately, what - set them up in the first place. The vampire Kain ultimately wants to break the chains of fate and destiny, and he sees Raziel as being the perfect tool with which to do it. Being a wraith, and therefore an enigma to the inescapable 'Wheel of Fate', Raziel is capable of making his own decisions as he, unlike the rest of Nosgoth's inhabitants, has free will.
The complications of the series' narrative might be what eventually put Square Enix off from releasing Dead Sun, aside from the report of their estimations that it would fail to meet sales targets, which is understandable as resurrecting any old IP is risky business. But, when you think about it, it's no riskier than forging a whole new one from scratch. Square Enix has proven already as a visionary developer that it can take an old franchise, hand it to the right studio and allow new life to be lovingly breathed back into it with the right care and guidance - making it a formidable combatant in the battle for Game of the Year. I am referring specifically to their amazing work rebooting the Tomb Raider series back in 2013.
After a quite unnecessarily dragged out lifespan, the Tomb Raider franchise was in desperate need of a re-injection of energy and purpose. That year, Square Enix took a watered down old gaming series and crafted, out of its very bones, one of the most immersive, dynamic and enjoyable in-game worlds I have ever had the fortune to explore. Young, naive (also repeatedly clumsy and later genocidal) protagonist Lara Croft was immediately likeable and relatable for the first time ever, and helping her through her journey on that horrific island out in the Dragon's Triangle reintroduced me to Tomb Raider in a way I didn't think was possible. Beforehand, she had been akin to a boring super heroine, but the developers grounded her and successfully rebuilt her for the modern audience, creating an empathetic, intelligent and deeply human character for players to nurture and look after throughout the game's unyielding storyline.
Dead Sun, the cancelled LoK project from 2012, was described by its developers as 'if HBO did Zelda', which gives a very clear visual on how things work in Nosgoth, the fantasy world where LoK is set. Pivotal characters die all throughout the story, with some being resurrected later on but only to die again in a far more brutal fashion than before. The two playable protagonists of the series, Kain and later Raziel, traverse time in the subsequent games as well, shifting events of their own history around and then witnessing the catastrophic effect said changes have on the rest of the world and its characters. It's all in a desperate attempt to understand how the rules of this gothic world work, why they are actually in place and who - or, more appropriately, what - set them up in the first place. The vampire Kain ultimately wants to break the chains of fate and destiny, and he sees Raziel as being the perfect tool with which to do it. Being a wraith, and therefore an enigma to the inescapable 'Wheel of Fate', Raziel is capable of making his own decisions as he, unlike the rest of Nosgoth's inhabitants, has free will.
The complications of the series' narrative might be what eventually put Square Enix off from releasing Dead Sun, aside from the report of their estimations that it would fail to meet sales targets, which is understandable as resurrecting any old IP is risky business. But, when you think about it, it's no riskier than forging a whole new one from scratch. Square Enix has proven already as a visionary developer that it can take an old franchise, hand it to the right studio and allow new life to be lovingly breathed back into it with the right care and guidance - making it a formidable combatant in the battle for Game of the Year. I am referring specifically to their amazing work rebooting the Tomb Raider series back in 2013.
After a quite unnecessarily dragged out lifespan, the Tomb Raider franchise was in desperate need of a re-injection of energy and purpose. That year, Square Enix took a watered down old gaming series and crafted, out of its very bones, one of the most immersive, dynamic and enjoyable in-game worlds I have ever had the fortune to explore. Young, naive (also repeatedly clumsy and later genocidal) protagonist Lara Croft was immediately likeable and relatable for the first time ever, and helping her through her journey on that horrific island out in the Dragon's Triangle reintroduced me to Tomb Raider in a way I didn't think was possible. Beforehand, she had been akin to a boring super heroine, but the developers grounded her and successfully rebuilt her for the modern audience, creating an empathetic, intelligent and deeply human character for players to nurture and look after throughout the game's unyielding storyline.
The two protagonists confront each other in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2. Now, the LoK series is actually continuing through the less conventional (and very unexpected) means of Nosgoth, a free-to-play battle game available now on Steam. But before its release (exclusively for PC I might add!), the LoK series had always adhered to a more traditional story-driven, single player experience. The various strands of the ongoing storyline are drip-fed across the five games, with the Blood Omen games taking place before Kain takes over Nosgoth, and the Soul Reaver games (as well as LoK: Defiance) taking place, chronologically, during and then after Kain's failed rule. Throughout the course of these last three installments, the series then takes us back through time across Nosgoth's broad history, on a self-destructive odyssey through the world's various different eras within which vampires and humans seem to be at odds pretty much wherever they go, but at different times for different reasons.
Kain and Raziel uncover grave secrets about their world and why things have been so brutal for so long, and how one selfish creature - a scheming and tentacled colossus known only as The Elder God - could well be liable for all of it, having manipulated the peoples of Nosgoth right from the start.
Kain and Raziel uncover grave secrets about their world and why things have been so brutal for so long, and how one selfish creature - a scheming and tentacled colossus known only as The Elder God - could well be liable for all of it, having manipulated the peoples of Nosgoth right from the start.
How the Legacy of Kain Experience Was Ahead of its Time
The majesty of the Material Realm... The games have individually explored a multitude of gameplay types. The first Blood Omen was a top-down action/adventure with RPG elements whereas Blood Omen 2 was more focused on third-person action/adventure mechanics. Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 both adopted some of the basic elements of Blood Omen but instead put them into an exploratory 3D platformer, with a variety of new action/adventure mechanics. LoK: Defiance, strangely, removed the exploratory gameplay aspect which had been a much loved aspect of the previous games and instead drew influence from the hack n' slash style of gameplay (as seen in the Devil May Cry and Beyonetta franchises), which had been popular on the PS2 at the time of its release. This also allowed the developers to focus more on telling the story than on fleshing it out in order to conform to player exploration in-game. Whilst the gameplay choices for a couple of the titles (namely Blood Omen 2 and LoK: Defiance) were questionable and, let's face it, probably led to the stoop in sales for LoK later in its life, the one thing which each game retained from the last was the incredible storytelling, the unique and wildly interesting cast of characters and the dark, immersive in-game worlds. Tomb Raider, as a series, might have been much more widely known than Soul Reaver - but these are things it never had before the brilliant 2013 reboot.
Gaming has come a long, long way since LoK: Defiance was released in 2003, and now all of the best selling games are doing what LoK was doing back in the late nineties and early naughties, far ahead of its time. Soul Reaver led the way forward in terms of pacing, performance capture, voice acting (where all of the actors performed their scenes together, which is still not done enough in modern titles) as well as the adaptive audio programming during its intense development. The in-game music changed dependent on your location within Nosgoth, and was also dynamic in that it could detect whether or not you were in battle, and altered itself accordingly. Now these things are typical of any decent AAA title in 2015, but back then in the late nineties - on the original PlayStation no less - most of these aspects were unheard of. They were the result of a tight knit team of game developers who shared the same vision, under the guidance of series director and writer Amy Hennig (who later went onto to pour her experiences of LoK into the insanely popular Uncharted series on the PS3). Certain designers who worked on the game also claimed that the collaboration on Soul Reaver was more intense than any gaming project that had come before, with the team working in unison to perfect their shared vision for the experience despite the hardware limitations of the time, as well as the impending deadline from the publisher.
Gaming has come a long, long way since LoK: Defiance was released in 2003, and now all of the best selling games are doing what LoK was doing back in the late nineties and early naughties, far ahead of its time. Soul Reaver led the way forward in terms of pacing, performance capture, voice acting (where all of the actors performed their scenes together, which is still not done enough in modern titles) as well as the adaptive audio programming during its intense development. The in-game music changed dependent on your location within Nosgoth, and was also dynamic in that it could detect whether or not you were in battle, and altered itself accordingly. Now these things are typical of any decent AAA title in 2015, but back then in the late nineties - on the original PlayStation no less - most of these aspects were unheard of. They were the result of a tight knit team of game developers who shared the same vision, under the guidance of series director and writer Amy Hennig (who later went onto to pour her experiences of LoK into the insanely popular Uncharted series on the PS3). Certain designers who worked on the game also claimed that the collaboration on Soul Reaver was more intense than any gaming project that had come before, with the team working in unison to perfect their shared vision for the experience despite the hardware limitations of the time, as well as the impending deadline from the publisher.
...And the darkly twisted Spectral Realm. Years before Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor had even been conceived, Soul Reaver introduced us to the darker, twisted Spectral Realm which could be accessed by Raziel at any time throughout. The game, which was originally released on PlayStation and then later Dreamcast, pioneered this mechanic in a wholly 3D in-game world with major influence being taken from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past's Dark World. This alone is probably why Soul Reaver is still regarded as being one of the best and most important games in the last twenty years. It was also one of the first games to introduce us to a fully accessible 3D open world which could be traversed easily on-foot and/or using portals. Shifting into the Spectral Realm twisted the world around you with minimal loading in-between (in fact, it was virtually non-existent in Soul Reaver), allowing access to areas previously inaccessible and also revealing secrets to Raziel he would never have before been able to find. For instance, Raziel could pass through iron bars to access hidden chambers, or navigate through canals and submerged ruins as, in the Spectral Realm, 'water stands as thin as air.' Passing between Material and Spectral Realms was necessary to complete puzzles throughout the world as well, furthering Raziel's journey cross the post-apocalyptic terrain. The game was hugely ambitious for the time and only managed to pull off about a third of its planned content due to the limitations of the generation's hardware, as well as obvious time constraints.
Gameplay leaks of LoK: Dead Sun reveal that the new developers had planned to reintroduce this mechanic in their new game with the advanced technology we have now, using the Spectral Realm shifting mechanics of Soul Reaver as a basis for its gameplay. Shadow of Mordor touched on it briefly too, but weaving in and out of the Living and Dead world in Mordor comes across more as a novelty than anything, and doesn't feel necessary in the end, whereas in Soul Reaver the developers made it both necessary and addictive. Its even darker iteration of Nosgoth than Blood Omen's was full of hidden gems waiting for the player to discover, such as the Human Citadel or the ruins of Nupraptor's Retreat, as well as secret abilities for Raziel to learn. You can bet that if Soul Reaver was made now, all of those secrets would have been sold separately as DLC after it was released. Speaking of which, a HD update would definitely serve to reignite interest in the series. It's somethingI've been vocal about here before.
Gameplay leaks of LoK: Dead Sun reveal that the new developers had planned to reintroduce this mechanic in their new game with the advanced technology we have now, using the Spectral Realm shifting mechanics of Soul Reaver as a basis for its gameplay. Shadow of Mordor touched on it briefly too, but weaving in and out of the Living and Dead world in Mordor comes across more as a novelty than anything, and doesn't feel necessary in the end, whereas in Soul Reaver the developers made it both necessary and addictive. Its even darker iteration of Nosgoth than Blood Omen's was full of hidden gems waiting for the player to discover, such as the Human Citadel or the ruins of Nupraptor's Retreat, as well as secret abilities for Raziel to learn. You can bet that if Soul Reaver was made now, all of those secrets would have been sold separately as DLC after it was released. Speaking of which, a HD update would definitely serve to reignite interest in the series. It's somethingI've been vocal about here before.
The Benefits of Soul Reaver HD
A Soul Reaver HD remake would definitely refresh interest in the series. So Square Enix decided that the time is not ready for a brand new Legacy of Kain single-player game, but perhaps the waters just have yet to be tested. One way to do that is by taking Soul Reaver, which is arguably the most loved and easiest to play and navigate (both gameplay and story-wise) of the five main games, and recreating it for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Graphically, of course, it would have to be completely overhauled in order to bring it up to date with the current technologies, as Oddworld: Nice n' Juicy was just last year. The recent rise of indie games has illustrated that the power of nostalgic gameplay rivals even examples of the the more marketable, and you can bet that a HD remake of Final Fantasy VII would have to retread the same gameplay strands of the original or risk being butchered by its fans, but less well received, overabundance of generic adventure games currently available. A Soul Reaver HD remaster would give Square Enix a truly dark, western-inspired fantasy title under their belt and stir up fresh interest from the new generation of gamers. Crystal Dynamics need only be involved in an advisory role, as they were on the Dead Sun project, with perhaps a different but experienced studio taking on development responsibilities.
With Soul Reaver's version of Nosgoth already mapped out, all it requires is care and effort in order to bring into the modern gaming world. Having replayed the game very recently through PSN I was pleasantly surprised at how accessible and easy to grasp the gameplay is, even for a game that was released in 1999. They could even update the world with a dynamic weather system, as in Tomb Raider, though Soul Reaver already featured areas of meteorological contrast (snowy mountains, barren canyons, etc...)
With Soul Reaver's version of Nosgoth already mapped out, all it requires is care and effort in order to bring into the modern gaming world. Having replayed the game very recently through PSN I was pleasantly surprised at how accessible and easy to grasp the gameplay is, even for a game that was released in 1999. They could even update the world with a dynamic weather system, as in Tomb Raider, though Soul Reaver already featured areas of meteorological contrast (snowy mountains, barren canyons, etc...)
A screenshot of Soul Revenant, the fan-made Soul Reaver remake. Voice-acting wise, everything is already firmly in place and the storyline is very simple by LoK-standards, setting up a new protagonist and goal up from the start and then drip feeding the world history throughout the story (a little like Dragon Age: Origins). Raziel, the first and favourite vampire son of Emperor Kain, is executed when he evolves a pair of wings, thus making Kain and his brothers jealous. They destroy Raziel's wings and throw him into a lake where he dissolves into nothing, as water is acidic to vampires. A thousand years later, Raziel's corpse is resurrected as a plane-shifting wraith by the mysterious Elder God, who sets him the task of taking revenge on those who murdered him. But Nosgoth has changed much in the millennia since his execution, and the land is more hostile than ever. As Raziel, you must navigate the ruined landscape, track down your brothers (all of whom have since 'evolved' into various monstrosities) and then - finally - come face to face with Kain. A free, fan-made HD project named Soul Revenant is currently in the works, but progress is slow. With digital downloads on the rise, Soul Reaver HD would treat gamers to either a nostalgic trip or a new adventure, and would definitely reopen the floodgates for both new and old fans to come pouring in. Nintendo proved once again last month that taking a popular title from the late nineties, remaking it and selling it as a AAA title can still be effective with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D. In fact, Nintendo has managed to build a gaming empire out of advancing the absolute best of their licensed assets, with all of their major franchises from the nineties still releasing highly anticipated titles.
The Underworld in Soul Revenant. Not only that, but with the releases of both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One we currently live in a climate where HD remasters are flying off the shelves (partially because none of the exclusive next-gen games are ready to be released yet). Even cult classic games such as Beyond Good & Evil, and Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, received HD makeovers on the last-gen devices where they were released digitally, and went on to sell and revive interest in their respective franchises. Soul Reaver sold better than both combined in its hayday, and has done more for the gaming industry than either in order to earn its HD facelift. Whether you agree with the development and selling of HD remakes or not, there's no argument that they make money. And there's no denying that the processing power of the latest gen systems offer more than enough power to fit in Soul Reaver's entire overworld and then some. That said, why not combine both Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 into one glorious HD game, giving players both halves of the incredible story and gameplay experience which encompasses both?
To give you a taste of what this series is like, take a look at Soul Reaver's iconic intro sequence below! Bear in mind as well this was released on the original PlayStation in 1999.
To give you a taste of what this series is like, take a look at Soul Reaver's iconic intro sequence below! Bear in mind as well this was released on the original PlayStation in 1999.
Time to revive the Legacy?
A huge thanks to AesirHod for helping put this article together!
Do you think it's time for Square Enix to invest in resurrecting Legacy of Kain or any of their other dormant IPs?
Let us know in the comments below, or come find us on Facebook/Twitter!
Do you think it's time for Square Enix to invest in resurrecting Legacy of Kain or any of their other dormant IPs?
Let us know in the comments below, or come find us on Facebook/Twitter!
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