NeoGAF’s member ‘Mama Robotnik‘ has shared a video showing 30 minutes of gameplay footage from the cancelled successor to Soul Reaver, Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun. As Mama Robotnik noted, the game was cancelled by Square Enix in 2012 after three years of development at Climax Studios, with Crystal Dynamics acting in an advisory role.
Moreover, Mama Robotnik shared some new details about this project that can be read below.
“The game was not projected to meet Square Enix sales projections, and was scrapped, to the enormous disappointment of staff who had dedicated a lot of work to the project.
The story of Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun seems to be along the lines of the following (with some information from insider sources and some from my knowledge of the franchise): Kain and Raziel’s time-travel throughout Legacy of Kain: Defiance appears to have stabilised Nosgoth’s far future. Humans spread across the land once more, and plant life began to re-appear. The vampire monsters returned to more elegant vampiric forms, though some maintained their bestial ancestors’ hunger for souls. The vampires continued to block out the sunlight using huge ever-burning smoke stacks. The conflict between predators and prey continued as it always had done. Humans were able to regain enough control of the wilderness to re-establish trading towns, and became enamoured with worship of the obscured Sun.
The respite faded, and mass sterility plagued the human race. Asher, a human, was able to achieve a miracle and father an unborn child. From unseen machinations, a Saradin Soul-Eater vampire is sent to kill Asher and his family (with orders form on high to make the assassination purposely look like a massacre) but something goes wrong: As the vampire attempts to consume the human’s soul, a freak occurrence results in Asher taking complete control of Gein’s body – leaving Gein’s vampire spirit impotent as ghost that only Asher can see and hear.
Their journey together across Nosgoth’s future would have initially explored who sent Gein to kill Asher, and why. It would later link to the wider Legacy of Kain mythos. There would be substantial connections to The Elder God, the Spectral Realm and a mysterious vampire child. The large theme running throughout the story would be the religious beliefs of Nosgoth. Climax were instructed by Square Enix to introduce a new protagonist to the series (as Crystal Dynamics had done thirteen years ago with Raziel in Soul Reaver), but the events were to be a continuation of the established Legacy of Kain storyline.
The area shown in the video is The Wetlands. It acted as a gigantic hub, connecting the different areas in this region of Nosgoth together. Such areas would have included: “dungeons”, huge boss encounters, intense use of shifting between the Spectral and Material realms, masses of exploration, combat and hidden/earned upgradable abilities. The game was described as being intensely story focused, and inspired greatly by Soul Reaver and Zelda (to quote a source: “think if HBO did Zelda”). The game was originally intended to be a XBox 360/PS3 retail release (note the use of XBox button icons in the video) but as development progressed, the game was strongly considered to be PlayStation 4 launch title.
The unnamed source that provided the video explained that the game was in a pre-alpha state when it was cancelled. Any abrupt framerate drops and jumps would have likely been tidied up before release, as the game still had a lot of development to go. Also, I have had to connect multiple videos together and upload them, this is not something I have done before, so any jarring jumps or drops in quality may be due to my inexperience at this video joining process.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
whats the point to share this when the game is already cancelled ?
be sad D=
To show that the “gaming industry” is capable of destroying great premises for a buck? To show that investing in those that get money to make games is how you get great games (and increase the value of game for investment on your part)? To show that companies that have a board of direction has no good direction in gaming? To show that real talented people can create masterpieces that you will never see because you give your money to companies and not creators? To show………..on and on and on………….
Or simply to make you realize that every time you buy a game, you decide the future of the gaming “industry”. Do it well we all win. Do it wrong, we all lose.
To get invenstors interested in it. Maybe ms will buy it as a xbone exlusive.
Such a good universe, wasted in the hands of shareholders… 🙁
This looks and feels very different from the other LoG games, but doesn’t look bad at all. I’d rather play a singleplayer game in this universe, than some co-op online shooter that nobody cares about.
6:30
18:35
Dammit… just Dammit.. this is cool but nothing like the original legacy of Kain games. I didn’t like this dark skin vampire and the Batman Combat style, The shifting looks bad and no good as it did in the original Soul Reaver, and where is the connection with Kain or Raziel, looks like a new game that they force to link it in the Legacy of Kain world.
For the sake make a reboot like you did with Tomb Raider or at least a HD version of the Soul Reaver 1+2 and Defiance.
I dont see how its nothing you got the same shifting techniques and health system, plus puzzles, yes the new character looks more like spawn but how is it nothing like the original games?
Do i need to point out soul reaver was nothing like the first legacy of kain game?
Agree with you that soul reaver was nothing like the legacy of kain. but The shifting in this game with all the ghosts looks out of things, but let’s just say this is an unfinished game. and hope to see more from the lok not just an f2p game.
REALLY! REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY CANCELLED THIS FOR A CRAAPY “F2P” BUT ACTUALL P2W GAME THAT IS TERRIBLE IN EVERYWAY THAT NO ONE GIVES A DAMN ABOUT, A GAME THAT SQUARE SENDS ME EMAILS MONTHLY ASKING ME MONTHLY WHAT THEY NEED TO CHANGE TO BE GOOD OR TO COMPETE WITH DOTA2 DESPITE NOT EVEN BEING ANYTHING SIMILAR?!!!!!!!!!!!????????????!
Such a damn shame, I would love to play this. Hope someone manages to pick this up and finish it later on.
Wow this is sad to watch. As a teen I was a huge fan of blood omen on PS1. Shame this game will never see the light of day. I would of got it day 1 no questions asked.
Would have been a great game if released on PC and beefed up.
I’ll be missing shaky b**bs
To be honest after watching a bit of that im glad it got canned. It didnt really look that great. Also was that supposed to be Raziel in that video or some new character who doesnt look anywhere close to being as “badass”? I remember Raziels’ character design was so much better than that in the LOKSR games.
No its not the same character.
Ffs. And they killed THIS for Nosgoth? Thanks a lot Square. Nosgoth isn’t half bad, but i hope it fails now, so they go back to making real games.
Was this really worth killing your old beloved francise, Square?
And we get Nosgoth instead…………………………………
Also: PC and PS4 version of Rise of the Tomb Raider pretty much confirmed
neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=998327
““The game was not projected to meet Square Enix sales projections”
WHAT DID?
HITMAN DIDNT, TOMB RAIDER DIDNT, SLEEPING DOGS DIDNT.
Freaking square enix.
Look at shadow of mordor, that game sold, you think this wouldnt sell? Seriously Someone should buy this game…deepsilver, go for it.
This is why we cant have nice things and we have to play the same games over and over again.
(oops double post)
What do the newgafs think about the naked boob hanging out?
You mean LOK DS right? Not much. At this point, the community is divided on the cancellation. Some like that it is, think it’s mostly nostaliga getting in the way, and the game looks crap compared to the previous games. Some really like it, because (mainly it’s been over 12 years since a LOK title). And are dying for a LOK game.
What i meant is that neogaf is filled with SJW whinny babies or so i heard.
We all knew this since the reveal.
It actually doesn’t look that bad.
I guess I’m a little too late to the discussion, but still I’d like to share my opinion. It seems many people liked the video and are sad that the game was canceled. And five years ago I would probably agree. But right now I’m kinda glad that it was canceled. Which might sound selfish, but at least I’l try to explain.
I’ll start from afar. I didn’t like the tomb raider reboot. It was an ok game on it’s own, but as a tomb raider game I thought it was awful. It rebooted the story and Lara character, which I didn’t care about in the slightest. However it also changed its genre and what this game is about at it’s core. Tomb raider was always about… well, Tomb raiding. Exploration of exotic places, uncovering secrets of ancient civilisations, encountering mythical creatures and supernatural forces. From the gameplay standpoint it was always about meaningful exploration (not just for achievments/collectibles’ sake) and puzzle solving. TR reboot has almost none of that. What it became is a third person cover based shooter with some terrain traversal and stealth elements. It became generic and overly simplified. Even “survival elements” that were heavily promoted turned out to be a joke. The whole game, while being ok on it’s own, was an unfunny joke at long time fans’ expence. It was less of a TR game, than Guardian of Light was – a low price downloadble title. And I’m really sad that the main series is now going to be this (reboot). I would almost prefer that they droped it altogeter than change it so much it’s unrecognisable. But at least we have previously mentioned Guardian of Light, I guess.
Now with everything above in mind. I don’t want LoK reboot for the sake of reboot. At least not a reboot like Dead sun. Yes it doesn’t play like previous game and I actually don’t care about that. I never actually cared much about certain gameplay mechanics or the game genre in LoK games, as opposed to TR. On the contrary story, world and charaters were always more important. And judging by the video there is not much left of that. But that’s not all. What replaced original characters and story seems a bit generic don’t you think. To the point of ripping of other works.
“You were killed, but now you’re undead. Here’s a bunch of superpowers, so go and avenge your death” reminds me of Blood omen among other things.
“Oh, you also eat souls, no big deal” In soul reaver it actually was a big deal. Raziel was unique in the world’s mythology. And him being a soul sucker played an important role. Doesn;t look like it was the case here.
“You’re dead and also infused with someone else’s soul” sounds alot like Shadow of mordor.
In fact it even plays like one. Which in turn was a ri- blend of Batman and Ass Creed.
Also wall climbing mechanics look simplified even compared to those. He climbes walls so fast and easily, it makes Spider-man look like a slowpoke.
Now, did I like anything? Some locations looked nice art design wise. World shift mechanic was there and looked cool. But not much else to be said I’m afraid.
It may’ve had potential, but honestly I think it looks generic and average overall. Looks like a game that I wouldn’t even consider buying if not for the title. Now, do we need a great series to reboot into a generic action game #4827534 or is it better if it stays dead. Personally I don’t want these kind of reboots. Not anymore. Not after TR anyway.
P.S. Sorry for the long post. It’s just very uncommon for me nowadays to find a good topic to discuss. Downvote it if you want. At least I’ll know someone read it.
Hi this is our petition to finishing Legacy of Kain Dead Sun https://www.change.org/p/square-enix-bring-back-legacy-of-kain-dead-sun?just_created=true