The Coin Landed on Its Edge: The Rise and Fall of Legacy of Kain

Over thirty years ago, a game proposal written by Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack known as the Pillars of Nosgoth was shopped alongside what would later become Too Human. It would take almost two decades for Too Human to materialize, but Pillars of Nosgoth was put into production almost immediately as Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and would launch for the Sony PlayStation after three years in development.

Blood Omen's success was overshadowed by a messy legal battle between Silicon Knights and developer Crystal Dynamics over the game's sequel rights. The right to develop a sequel, as well as the franchise's IP ownership, was granted to Crystal Dynamics. Through several sequels and a prequel, what would become known as the Legacy of Kain changed the course of both storytelling and narrative design in video games.

It would see a meteoric rise to the top. The ongoing struggle between the vampire Kain and his BFF turned enemy turned time-traveling partner for life, Raziel, was rife with melodrama and a sense of gravitas that elevated to something more. No other game franchise in the world ever had this level of writing, voice acting and mythology, but the Kain games had all three at once.

As the old saying goes, however, what goes up must come down. And come down it did, as the Legacy of Kain franchise came crashing down like a ton of bricks. It has found its footing again in some ways, but the astonishing rise and fall of the Legacy of Kain is one of gaming's most fascinating tales.

From the Shards of Tattered Dreams

Blood Omen opened a door that took quite a while to close. Voice acting wasn't uncommon when Blood Omen came out, but the quality on display was absolutely untouchable. No game ever came close to matching the writing, world building and performances. Simon Templeman delivered the performance of a lifetime as Kain, and he would be joined by some of the greatest voice actors of their generation in the years to come.

Michael Bell shines in the role of Raziel, forming a key part of the complicated relationship he shares with Kain. Actors like Tony Jay, Richard Doyle and Rene Auberjonois filled out the rest of the franchise's regular cast. Simon Templeman and Michael Bell didn't just lend their spectacular voices to Kain and Raziel, rather embodied them in a way where the performances and the writing simply could not exist without each other.

It was this level of care and detail that pushed Legacy of Kain further into the spotlight. It gained a reputation that was well-earned, which was that of an interactive novel of sorts. The prose was stupendous, and the developers cared enough about that story to hire excellent actors to deliver. The reputation that Blood Omen created was further solidified by Soul Reaver just three years later, as a bigger budget and 3D graphics allowed for a much broader, more expansive exploration of the franchise's mythology.

Paradox Lost

With the power of the PS2, Crystal Dynamics took the franchise to the next level with Soul Reaver 2. Everything was bigger and more involved, and multiple elements that were cut from Soul Reaver 1 were folded into the sequel. The ambition of the Kain franchise was never more evident than during the late 1990s and early 2000s, as it was intent on telling a multi-chapter story that required more than what the consoles were capable of.

Kain and Raziel's story began to shift from mortal enemies to fractured allies, and the complex lore started to get even more complicated. It was perhaps that ambition that proved to be its undoing, as elements like time travel and alternate realities started to seep in. If you had been following the franchise since the beginning, this was all gravy, but grabbing the attention of a mass audience is difficult when so many of the games are interconnected.

Overly complex mythologies tend to have a hard time, and by the time Defiance launched in 2003, it was possibly a little bit of too much too soon. The Kain franchise saw three major releases over a span of three years, including Soul Reaver 2, Blood Omen 2 and Defiance. It was a lot, with many of the games involving time travel, paradoxes and alternate realities. That's a hard sell now, but doubly so back in the early 2000s.

The Wheel of Time

The unfortunate reality is that no matter how much we love a particular franchise, the people who have all the money make all the decisions about what gets made. With Legacy of Kain, those people saw a rather troubling trend with the series. The trilogy of games that came out during the early 2000s were selling decently, but doing just that.

No growth or increase in the audience size was found, as each game sold just as well or worse than the last one. That's not really what you want to see if you're in the business of making a profit, and as much fun as it would be to make games for free and have the best time, but that's just not how it works. Video games are expensive, and the Kain franchise was notorious for how much each game cost to make.

Defiance was due for a sequel, but the slow sales and middling critical reception put an end to that idea. As an ending for Kain and Raziel, it works fairly well, but there was still so much more to explore within the world of Nosgoth. The franchise had a mythology that was ready to be explored in various spin-offs and potentially even more solo Kain games.

As it stands, the Legacy of Kain franchise is nowhere close to where it was. There was a time when the Kain games demanded, and easily received, a level of respect that wasn't afforded to other franchises. Recently, the classic titles have been beautifully and lovingly remastered.

We're still likely very far away from a brand-new mainline entry in the style of the older games, but there's a clear and obvious interest in making sure the franchise stays relevant. We may not see Legacy of Kain get back to the spotlight it once gripped so tightly, but the fans of the franchise have been given some wonderful gifts over the past several years. And when you consider where Kain and the rest of the vampires were as recently as five years ago, you can't ask for much more than that.