Legacy of Kain
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Legacy of Kain is a series of video games developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive. Although the first game in the series was developed by Silicon Knights and published by Crystal Dynamics, Crystal Dynamics continued the series without Silicon Knights. The idea behind Legacy of Kain was first conceived in 1993, but three years later it first appeared on the Sony PlayStation console.
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[edit] List of released games:
[edit] Overview
The series features an extensive storyline and history that is told and expanded during each game. One of the most compelling aspects of the games is the dialogue and the length to which the story is told within each game. Most of the individual games primarily deal with a subset of the storyline; although since the general timeline is non-linear, some of the later games include pieces of the story from the past, present and future. (See time travel.) The exact history and timeline of the series is still under much debate but there is a general timeline that is accepted by most fans.
The primary focus of the series is to chronicle the afterlife of the vampire Kain, but during the story the player is introduced to many other characters and sub-plots.
The series is set in the fictitious realm of Nosgoth. The realm of Nosgoth is an ancient battleground for which two god-like species have been at war since before history. Firstly the Vampires (not to be confused with their blood-sucking descendants), and secondly the Hylden, with a third faction in the form of the Elder God. The Hylden in earlier times waged an all out war, but in modern times, fight through surrogates and pawns. The level of sophistication their warfare has developed is staggering, and much more realistic for such a protracted battle than the wasteful, exhaustive and ultimately short-term warfare style originally endorsed by both species. Each species moves in some way from behind the scenes, manipulating events slowly and deliberately, molding and preparing the lesser peoples of the world (humanity) to act eventually in their favor, with individual moves often taking centuries or millennia to completely unfold.
In ancient times, the Hylden had attempted to put a decisive end to the war by developing a super-weapon which would extinguish the life of the world. This weapon, apparently, violated a number of the fundamental laws governing the nature of the world and reality, severely upsetting the balance of life and death, which the Ancient Vampires held to be sacred. The Pillars of Nosgoth were erected in order to restore balance and order to the land, and ensure that these governing dynamics (which the Ancients accordingly divided into nine spheres) were never bent or broken again. Furthermore, the Vampires enacted a massive exile, banishing the Hylden race from the world of Nosgoth. Each pillar of the nine pillars represents one of the nine orders which the Ancient Vampires divined were the governing forces of the world, and each pillar had a Guardian whose task was to protect and uphold their respective laws. The nine spheres of law were:
Death, being the cycle of life, death and rebirth which the Ancients held sacred.
Conflict, being the interactions of things with other things and the new things arising thereof.
States, being the nature of the physical world and the ordering of the concrete, including chemicals and all the laws governing the physical world, such as electromagnetism and gravity.
Energy, being the vital force which animates creation and allows for the changing of all things.
Time, being the cyclical flow of time and the fated events to take place in order of their happening.
Dimension, being the dual directionality of the fabric of existence, allowing things which exist to exist and preventing things which do not exist from existing.
Nature, being the growth and evolution of living things, and everything which is animated or can be said to have a soul.
The Mind, being the soul itself, or the soul as it perceives itself, including all psychology, the study of the mind in relation to itself.
And finally: Balance, being the interactions of all the spheres of law, and all things which fall under the auspices of more than one set of laws. It allows for the existence of concepts that combine the areas of influence of multiple laws such as neurology, sociology, and politics. Balance governs all of existence through its governing of the laws themselves.
However, by the time of the games, their power is waning and some (most notably the Hylden) seek to destroy the pillars entirely. It is unknown whether there was ever a time of peace in Nosgoth or whether one will ever come to pass. It is also revealed later on that the Pillars served a dual purpose: along with preserving the balance of the land, the Pillars acted as a gateway, banishing the Hylden into a desolate dimension, inhabited by numerous monsters which are known as "Demons" in the games. The Pillars also act as the lock to this gate, and as long as they stand the Hylden are trapped; this is the reason behind the Hylden's use of numerous pawns and surrogates during the games (for as the Pillars weaken they are able to manifest using the bodies of the dead).
Another interesting game mechanic in this series is that the player takes the role of two different characters during the course of the games. For example in the Blood Omen games the player controls Kain, but during the Soul Reaver games Raziel is controllable and the story is resumed from his point of view. Finally in Legacy of Kain: Defiance the player assumes the roles of both Kain and Raziel at regular intervals.
One of the true innovations of the Legacy of Kain series is the greatly involved storyline, with believable characters, and shifting alliances and betrayals. Nosgoth is a dark fantasy land with an elaborate and involved history, and that history is often revealed in reverse; new information often shows that what is believed to be true is a lie. Furthermore, nearly every major character, or groups of characters, has both aspects of heroism and villainy, even when some aspects seem to shine through more often than others.
[edit] Kain
[edit] Raziel
[edit] Destiny and fate
An underlying element of the story is heavily concerned with destiny and throughout the series fatalism is a strong theme. The idea that a person's destiny can be foreseen and thus altered is presented to the player. Much of the final game Defiance is devoted to discovering whether this hypothesis is true. Some characters try to use this facet to their advantage by attempting to manipulate other characters' (notably Raziel's) destiny.
Free will is also challenged during the story and a great number of the in-game characters believe that no one truly possesses free will, except maybe Raziel. Therefore these characters believe that Raziel is the key to altering destiny. Manipulation also plays a major point in the progression of the story since nearly every character, at some point in the story, is manipulated by another.
[edit] Time travel
Much of the story behind Legacy of Kain contains time travel. It is used as a method for creating a diverse and very non-linear timeline. This time traveling ability is obtained through time streaming chambers and the Chronoplast, as well as time streaming devices, all of which are credited to Moebius the Timestreamer, who is the Guardian of Time (one of the nine guardians of the Pillars).
Although much of the story involves time travel, it does not initially make sense, usually it requires background reading and additional playthroughs of earlier games before a full understanding of the story is acquired. Many paradoxes are introduced during the story, as is commonly the case among stories containing time travel [1]. These paradoxes further add to the confusion, as each paradox that comes up throughout the games tends to actively re-write history and the course of past, present, and future events (the most notable and consistently mentioned of these time changing paradoxes is the one in the original Blood Omen, where Kain travels back in time and kills a past king (and future tyrant)). In the series, the only consistent cause of these paradoxes is the meeting of a past version of the Soul Reaver weapon with a future one. It is interesting to note that the events of Blood Omen 2 (see below) are actually the product of a paradox created in Soul Reaver 2, a fact which initially confused many long-time fans before enough time had passed for notes to be compared between games.
[edit] The games
So far there have been five Legacy of Kain games in the series, each one continuing the story and answering questions that previous games had left unanswered. The games have appeared on a number of different platforms, but the PC is the only platform to contain all the games, though it is possible to play all of them with just a PS2. Even though each game is ultimately an action game, they contain many platformer elements and some do share properties of role playing and adventure games.
| Name | Year Released | Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain | 1996 | PC / PlayStation |
| Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver | 1999 | PC / PlayStation / Dreamcast |
| Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 | 2001 | PC / PS2 |
| Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain | 2002 | PC / PS2 / Xbox / GameCube |
| Legacy of Kain: Defiance | 2003 | PC / PS2 / Xbox |
[edit] Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
- For the PlayStation and PC (announced for the Sega Saturn but cancelled before release).
This game is the first in the series and sets the scene for this series quite well. A lot of story is presented to the player in addition to much lore and history that will not be fully explained until later games in the series. This game is a top down hybrid of action, adventure, and role playing games, where the player controls Kain, a newly born vampire seeking to fulfill his desires for revenge, and rid himself of his vampiric curse. But things are not always as they seem...
[edit] Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
- For the PlayStation, PC and Sega Dreamcast.
The second game in the series puts the player in control of a new protagonist, about 1500 years after the end of the first game. The vampire Raziel, one of Kain's six 'sons' and greatest lieutenants, dares to surpass his master's vampiric evolutionary process by evolving a set of bat-like wings. As Raziel enters the Sanctuary of the Clans (at the Pillars of Nosgoth) to reveal his Dark Gift, Kain approaches, rips his wings off, and soon afterward executes him by ordering two of the other lieutenants, Turel and Dumah, to cast Raziel into the Abyss, a gargantuan vortex of spectral water which destroys Raziel utterly. Raziel awakens in the ghostlike, distorted Spectral Realm centuries after his damnation, seemingly resurrected by the Elder God, an omnipotent tentacled octopus-like deity who dwells at the bottom of the Abyss.
Eager to claim revenge upon his old brethren and master, Raziel is informed by The Elder God that he is no longer a vampire, and is now a wraith who feeds on souls rather than blood. He is set upon his betrayers at the behest of the Elder God and proceeds to seek out his brothers one by one. Each brother is encountered within a boss battle that is more of a puzzle than an actual (physical, hand to hand, weapons) fight. After defeating each of his brothers and consuming their apostate souls, Raziel gains a unique ability that the brother possessed.
These abilities are used to access other areas in the world of Nosgoth that were previously unreachable to Raziel so that he may continue his search for Kain and revenge. The game also takes place in two alternate planes of existence - the Material and Spectral Realms. In the Material Realm, everything is as it should be, yet in the Spectral Realm, lost souls abound and new means of passage throughout Nosgoth are revealed.
In addition to fighting four of his five brothers, Raziel also does battle with his former master, Kain, twice during his adventure. In their first confrontation, as Kain attempts to finish Raziel by smashing the blade into his skull, his sword, the Soul Reaver, shatters and the spectral manifestation of the soul devouring entity within attaches itself to Raziel's right arm. Kain (surprisingly pleased with this result) then takes his leave and Raziel learns to master his new weapon.
[edit] Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2
- For the PlayStation 2, PC (also planned for the Sega Dreamcast, but later cancelled).
This direct sequel to Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver picks up the story where the previous game left off. Raziel is still in pursuit of Kain, but now he has to uncover the mysteries surrounding his own destiny.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver left Raziel as he enters Moebius's time machine in pursuit of Kain. We rejoin him here as he searches through the past, before the events of the other games. Raziel learns of his true origins and also more of his ultimate and cruel fate.
[edit] Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain
- For the PlayStation 2, PC, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube
In this game, players again take the sword of Kain and continue his quest to claim Nosgoth as his own.
Developed by a different team at Crystal Dynamics, this sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain this game has many of the qualities that make the other games popular, but focusing much more on gore and combat than the traditional puzzle oriented LOK gameplay. Even the setting, that of one enormous industrial city (the yet-unheard-of capital of Nosgoth; Meridian) is unusual. The game's story takes place 200 years after the ending of the first Blood Omen game, in the alternate timeline created by the Soul Reaver 2 paradox. Having refused to sacrifice himself to restore the Pillars of Nosgoth, Kain instead attempted to build a vampire army and conquer the world. As the game begins, Kain awakens from a deep sleep and learns that he was defeated by an army of vampire hunters called the Sarafan. Kain sets out to get his revenge and rebuild his empire. Many fans consider this game to be an unrelated spin-off that doesn't really advance the story beyond anything that is already known. There are some minor inconsistencies in this game that are not fully explained, and this is often seen as a consequence arising from the development team being different.
Almost all of the inconsistencies can be explained by the alternate timeline created in Defiance, as history was changed by the paradox at the end of Soul Reaver 2. Raziel postponed his fate, and resurrected Janos; the Hylden escape their demon dimension and recreate the Order of the Sarafan, the Unspoken (later called Hash'ak'gik in Defiance, whose name and cult are mentioned in passing in the original Blood Omen) posing as the Sarafan Lord. Basically, Blood Omen 2 continues the story not taking into account the events of Defiance. It is a look ahead into the direct result from the Soul Reaver 2 paradox.
(Note: Vorador's appearance in Blood Omen 2 after his apparent execution in Blood Omen 1 events was originally explained to a partial extent at the very least also in Defiance's events. But these scenes were cut out in the final product).
[edit] Legacy of Kain: Defiance
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- For the PlayStation 2, PC and Xbox.
The fifth Legacy of Kain game is quite different from the others since the player takes control of both Kain and Raziel throughout the game to discover how their destinies are intertwined. This latest installment in the series to date leaves events on a hopeful note, but without full resolution. However, due to the condition of the Kain team, it is unknown whether the series will continue. (See below.)
[edit] The Future of the Series
Amy Hennig, who led the Crystal Dynamics team responsible for Soul Reaver 1 & 2 and Defiance, left Crystal Dynamics shortly after Defiance was released. Because of this, Defiance is considered by many to be the last Legacy of Kain game, considering that Hennig is no longer with Crystal Dynamics' Kain team--if they still exist--and that it has been more than four years since information has been released concerning plans to continue the series. Another blow was the death of Tony Jay, a key voice actor throughout the series, who provided the voice of The Elder God. And yet another serious blow was death of Kyle Mannerberg. Kyle was the last man who Amy put in charge of Legacy of Kain series.
However, in 2006, Crystal Dynamics finished development of Tomb Raider: Legend and it is now possible that Crystal Dynamics will make a new game for the series on some or all of the next-generation video game consoles. What some believe to be evidence of this possibility can be found in the game Tomb Raider: Legend in the form of two unlockable extra costumes for Lara Croft: 'Gothic' and 'Gothic, Lace Shirt' variations of Lara's ensemble. In these costumes, Lara bears a neck tattoo of Raziel's clan Glyph, and her belt buckle carries Kain's Glyph. The Soul Reaver sword itself is also an unlockable extra only available upon 100% completion of the game. There are portraits of Kain in her mansion, which can be found in the "Kain's Tomb" section of Defiance.
[edit] Music
The music of all games except the two Blood Omen games was composed by Kurt Harland, of synthpop band Information Society. The theme song of Soul Reaver, "Ozar Midrashim", can be found in Information Society's 1997 album Don't Be Afraid. The first Blood Omen's music was composed by Steve Henifin, the composer for the Silicon Knights sound team, as listed in the credits of the game. The music for the second Blood Omen, which was done by a different team, was done by Jim Hedges, according to the credits.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- www.legacyofkain.com – The primary official Legacy of Kain website.
- Legacy of Kain: The Lost Worlds – Site archiving deleted and lost information about the Legacy of Kain series.
- Legacy of Kain series at MobyGames
- Eidos Official forum – Topic about death of Kyle Mannerberg.
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