Topic: Legacy of Kain cancelled sequel footage

[PyroMenace]

Pretty weird, I can see why it was cancelled, but the combat seemed decent even if it was a God of War action brawler.

[Quemaqua]

Crap. I don't have time to sit and watch this just now, but I'm going to. And I bet you when I do it's going to make me sad. I miss that franchise. Though truth be told, it's been so ungodly long since I've played any of them, I should really just go back and play them if I have a hankering. I'd love to go through Soul Reaver 2 again. God damn that was a game.

[Xessive]

Man, I would have been up for a LoK game!

A lot of the visuals, character animations, and control style seem very similar to Nosgoth (the multiplayer game). It wouldn't surprise me if Nosgoth was meant to be the multiplayer aspect of LoK: Dead Sun game but was instead released as an separate game altogether.

With this video, I almost believe they're trying to cling on to some hope of revival for Dead Sun. Kinda like what happened with the Deadpool movie (movie gets cancelled, test footage is leaked, reaction from fans is extremely positive, movie is back in production).

[Cobra951]

I remember nothing but disappointment after the brilliant game changer that the first LoK: Soul Reaver was.  Streaming in a huge world seamlessly was a brand-new thing.  The two world dimensions, the mechanics, freedom and atmosphere, and the narrative were so gripping.  I always wanted a proper completion for that one, and SR 2 wasn't it for me.

[W7RE]

A lot of the visuals, character animations, and control style seem very similar to Nosgoth (the multiplayer game). It wouldn't surprise me if Nosgoth was meant to be the multiplayer aspect of LoK: Dead Sun game but was instead released as an separate game altogether.

This popped up on Neogaf a couple days ago: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=997613

The game had included a multiplayer component, an online asymmetrical deathmatch mode completely disconnected to the story and era of the single-player campaign. This was the only part of the project to survive the cancellation, and has now been heavily expanded upon and released as Nosgoth.
...
Some of Dead Sun continues to live on in Nosgoth. For example, Gein’s mastery of flight is an innate ability of the Razielim vampire clan, and the wall-climbing mechanic is a basic power of all the vampire combatants. A number of Dead Sun’s graphics assets are repurposed in Nosgoth’s human cities (note the white sun mural shown in the Razielim link appears throughout the Dead Sun video). As an aside, Nosgoth started as the multiplayer companion game to Dead Sun, but has since become a unique independent entry in its own right. It’s clearly absolutely not the expansive single-player adventure that Legacy of Kain fans have waited for since 2003’s Legacy of Kain: Defiance, but I find it fun to play, appreciate it as not being pay to win, and generally like its additions to the lore. For example, the lost vault of the Razielim is a story addition that I feel works very well indeed. With many scrapped projects, so much work is forever lost. Although Dead Sun's cancellation is extremely disheartening, at least some of the work that went into it lives on.

[Xessive]

Well, that explains that! Haha

It's a shame that the single player and story are going away but at least Nosgoth is fun.

[Quemaqua]

Soul Reaver 2 was a fantastic game, though it was a different one. Defiance was fairly middling, and Blood Omen 2 was on the low side of average. Which is a shame on both counts. The original Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was fantastic too, though. Very dark and brooding stuff, I think far more so than any of the later games, which got considerably more cartoonish. The whole series is reasonably worthwhile, though it's definitely hard to beat the original Soul Reaver. That reality-twisting mechanic was indeed fabulous, and the openness and freedom made other games feel so much less alive.

I think Nosgoth is stupid. I mean not the game itself so much, just ... why the hell use that IP for Generic Multiplayer Shooter #872? It doesn't look bad. I've watched some footage and it looks fun and all, but it's just a straight waste of the IP. If it came from another game, then that does explain it. Well, at least sort of. It doesn't explain why the other game was canceled and why they decided to keep the multiplayer part. That makes zero sense to me given that the entire franchise is SP-based and that's what, oh, about 100% of its fans actually want.

[Xessive]

Yeah, Square-Enix makes some weird decisions like that.

I don't know who asked for it but apparently Squenix found it appropriate to dedicate resources to multiplayer in Tomb Raider. I certainly didn't care for it; TR is a single player experience for me.

[scottws]

OT:  I always felt that the Legacy of Kain universe was perfect for making into movies.  Instead we get crap like Mario Bros., Mortal Kombat, and Doom.

[PyroMenace]

Man, I loved the MK movie so much when it came out, I think I was in 7th grade. Then there was that Mario Bros. movie, man... so fucking bad yet Im kinda glad it exists.

[Xessive]

I only hated the first MK movie because it was a total rip-off of one of my favourite movies of all time: Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon.

I could totally see the LoK universe in movie form, even if it's animated rather than live action. I was always more interested in the lore than the gameplay, except for the Soul Reaver games, I thoroughly enjoyed those two games (despite some platforming gripes).

[gpw11]

I can't watch that.    Not all of the Kain games are great, but its probably my favourite series for the storytelling.  I would love a new sp game and it seems like every two years or so a ton of info leaks on a cancelled sequel that we will never see.   Aggravating

[MysterD]

Eurogamer - Very long article on Climax Studios' development of the cancelled Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun.

[Quemaqua]

Sounds like the game had some other potential issues, but the crux of why it was canceled comes down to, "We told you to make a bad game. You made it, and we thought it looked bad, so we canned it." Technical issues aside, seems like that's really why it was ultimately shut down. Focus-testing is where videogames go to die.

Pretty infuriating. I too would dearly love another good entry into the series. Though ... ugh, the dumb gameplay of this one did look aggressively bad. I don't think I would have wanted to sit through that. Though I might have if the story was worthwhile.

What a waste has been made of this IP.