Legacy of Kain Dead Sun - What Happened?

[@MattMcMuscles]

➤ Matt McPlushy Campaign - www.makeship.com/products/matt-mcmuscles-plush

[@alephnole7009]

I don't believe the world changing mechanic would have worked on the consoles of the time. But the ps5 could probably pull it off. Tho the art style would need some serious updating.

[@Kris-ck2md]

Very small correction: Soul Reaver 2 got a PC release, it wasn't a PS2 exclusive. Excellent video regardless, even if it makes me sad for the series.

[@RicardoNecrofear]

Matt, go for Jet Set Radio next please. I've been feeling way too happy in the past couple of weeks, so I need something to wreck my soul to balance it out.

[@scarecrow753086]

shut up and take my money

[@BHSDesk]

Missed a trick by not calling him "Matt McPlushles", but I'll let it slide since he's so adorable. XD

[@BaticusPrime]

See what pisses me off is that after all this bullshit they pulled, the only thing SqEnix probably pulled from this was the failure of Nosgoth and said "Welp I guess the masses are not interested in Kain anymore!"

[@luisphelipecarvalho5990]

Welcome to capitalism

[@artimuos903]

It's true if the game not sold few million units there is no point making a big game. Square Enix better sell this franchise to Nordic games.

[@bombkangaroo]

@@luisphelipecarvalho5990 capitalism [ kap-i-tl-iz-uhm ] noun an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

[@ranfan1820]

@@bombkangaroo Thank you. Idiots like that guy don't know what they're talking about.

[@Thedrysurrealbloke]

They don't understand it.

[@kamirubidan2080]

Squeenix being poorly managed , fractured, and holding back development as a result? I am blown away by this twist. Shocked beyond belief.

[@chocov1233]

As am I. I'd never expect Square Enix to mismanage and ruin a game or series, leaving it for dead in a gutter bleeding out, without a second though.

[@SchizmKing]

Well look what they tried to do with the hitman franchise

[@alexhobbs1208]

@@SchizmKing you have arrived to the joke.

[@Jebbtube]

This franchise deserved so much better than this. I'd love to see the alternate timeline where the sequel to Defiance came out without a hitch.

[@toiletsinjapan9933]

there was a hitch from the get-go, because the development was outsourced. bad sign

[@Powered1Buttercup]

My sister loves this series so much, she showed me what was shown of the dead sun(?) game and as soon as I started to see people swearing left and right it made me cringe just as much as she did, because even I knew how different the dialogue was compared to the other games, it was ridiculous

[@MrMortull]

"Without a hitch" would probably be bad, actually. Weird as it sounds, LoK seemed to ride the line between success and oblivion, only barely surviving as long as it did and coming out better from troubled development. I mean... if the Crystal Dynamics/Silicon Knights thing hadn't gone down the way it did "Soul Reaver" would never have happened and the franchise would have become something entirely different.

[@painandsorrowcards]

@@Powered1Buttercup I agree. I'm not a prude when it comes to swearing, most of my friends sound worse than sailors, but it was completely out of place in a Legacy of Kain game. Legacy of Kain has shakespearean dialogue and closet to cussing is when he calls his brothers "bastards." I was out at the first "fuck you vampire"

[@ebox147]

God, i miss the Legacy of Kain games so much. I'm still sad about Nosgoth's fate

[@Crowen55]

Nosgoth was criminally underrated.

[@JMorrall89]

So much wasted potential. What was there was solid but hampered by some of the worst netcode/server issues I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

[@VoskahMarkhov]

I know it pissed people off because of lore reasons and being multiplayer only, but that game was one of the best asymmetrical MP experiences I have ever had.

[@JMorrall89]

@@VoskahMarkhov When it actually worked? Yes. Poor old vamps didn't even get all the clans represented. No Rahabeim :(

[@kevinallain2415]

I never got to try Nosgoth actually. I heard some people were still making it run on their own servers, but I can't remember where I read that.

[@ericallen5677]

Might as well be "What Happun to the entire Legacy of Kain franchise"

[@GenerationWest]

Legacy of Kain is now one of those franchisee that's beloved, but dead to a point that the creators and rights holders are like... "Naw, but maybe, but naw, but probably...?" Since Avengers makes all of it's money from cosmetics, wouldn't be surprised if something akin to Nosgoth gets made, because Square Enix learns their lesson one way, then makes a similar mistake with another. At least they didn't tell us about the game beforehand this time, only for the hype to die with the game.

[@shards-of-glass-man]

I don't think SE cares about the community in general, if their treatment of the old Eidos forums or the entire "uh, we have put it into the Collective initiative, maybe someone will pick it out of the trash can" approach is of any indication.

[@EdgarTorres-mw5up]

"Nah, but maybe, but nah" Naughty Dog whenever they bring up Jak and Daxter. It's disappointing to see a such a rich world with a great story just be left back like this.

[@EdgarTorres-mw5up]

@Aker Don't do that.... don't give me hope.

[@revalution1965]

@@EdgarTorres-mw5up after seeing how ratchet n clank turned out they should leave my boys jak n dexter alone lol

[@abdoabdalla1745]

Also to be fair. Stepping into Amy Henning's shoes is a tall order.

[@0856401]

fucking love Legacy of Kain. I hate Square Enixs bizarre decision making where they just kinda make what is clearly the worst call about 90% of the time.

[@hazzar7784]

As a life long gamer and FF fan, I can only agree.

[@Supernova--88]

Seriously, they've let FF devolve into CGI interactive movies and they just leave LoK to die like it isn't something a ton of people want more of. They were one of my favorite publishers but these days I just dunno what the hell they're thinking.

[@OutOfTheShadows1]

@@Supernova--88 For me it's less that that's killing ff for me so much as the needless arbitrary obsession with absolutely stupid changes that serve no purpose other than to be different and usually worse than what came before.. shit like randomly changing to a 3 party member limit starting in ff vii and limiting how freely the player can set up their party for seemingly no reason, or ff x and xiii randomly deciding to make their titles glorified hallways, or ff vii r randomly going episodic and butchering the pacing of their titles, or ff xv randomly becoming the most half baked open world arpg ever.. like it seems like square is afraid of making an actual.. normal, decent FF

[@Supernova--88]

@@OutOfTheShadows1 Yeah I get that. I think I would be fine with something linear if we could just have the classic battle systems back. It sucks that traditiomal turn based jrpgs are hardly made these days.

[@OutOfTheShadows1]

@@Supernova--88 Yeee that's part of why I'm more a dragon quest fan, as dragon quest actually seems.. secure in being itself? and not chasing down every single stupid idea the execs have without considering if it's good or not

[@SAPProd]

“If a company couldn’t care less about a particular IP, they should maybe think of selling the rights to someone who will.” 8 months later, they finally took Matt’s advice!

[@RADIANTRAIN5]

I came back to the franchise a month ago (I have a history of revisiting old media coincidentally before a new release). As soon as crystal dynamics posted raziel fan art I knew something was going down. The series could be in a worse publisher's hands

[@somerandomschmuck2547]

@@RADIANTRAIN5 If it's not a bother, you got a link to that?

[@yayco123]

@@RADIANTRAIN5 even with them it might be in good hands, as long as they dont touch the writing, because lets be real, lok never got its following from its gameplay. So if we can get new games with barebone gameplay with lok standard of writing and voice acting, i'm fine. And if they want to remake the games, I seriously ask for things like cube puzzles to be changed from soul reaver....

[@thehorsefromhorsinabout]

-a company that cares -embracer group -bullshit one of these things is not like the others.

[@TungstenViper]

Legacy of Kain: Dark Prophecy needs to happen. This series DESERVES a true ending.

[@toiletsinjapan9933]

Ideally, yes. Thing is, Dark Prophecy was kinda snakebit from the beginning, since it was going to run on the Defiance engine. Didn't really make sense since the tech would've been old news by the time of release, and it wouldn't even have the same team (or writers) working on it. As it is, fans got pretty pissed at the Blood Omen 2 team for all the stuff they retconned by accident, so trusting an OUTSIDE team with the penultimate game in the series sounded pretty risky even at the time. Honestly, I didn't mind how the series went out; Defiance was still a really good game despite the weird fixed camera platforming, and you at least got some payoff with the whole Kain vs. The Elder God thing (keeping it vague for spoilers, I guess). As Matt mentioned, in between Dark Prophecy and Nosgoth / Dead Sun, there were a bunch of other LOK games that never got off the ground, so who knows which of them would have been THE game.

[@LichCrypt]

Amy Henning got kicked out of the gaming industry so I don't want it.

[@TungstenViper]

@@toiletsinjapan9933 Blood Omen 2 didn't retcon anything iirc. it all happens in the past because of the Paradox in Soul Reaver 2. the current timeline is still the same. They could still get Amy Hennig, Daniel Cabuco and Kurt Harland to work on it but it's unlikely...

[@TungstenViper]

@@LichCrypt ??? wut? Hennig is still making games.

[@LichCrypt]

@@TungstenViper is she? Last time I checked she was kicked out of Naughty Dog and "cancelled" over nothing.

[@zwallyzool1974]

It's a shame so many studios just totally forget about their great IPs.

[@MsFelinaFox]

"This game won't meet our sales expectations" Their sales expectations: MW2 launch day

[@noway9320]

Squeenix expects their dirty dirty gaijin studios to sell more copies than GTA V, while their precious Japanese studios can continuously fuck up over and over again and always get bailed out.

[@mediumvillain]

Pretty sure Square Enix has said this about literally every game released by a non-Japanese studio under their umbrella, even when the game sold well.

[@Drag7on]

Chasing the trend dragon doesn't work.

[@TheBitishDragon]

it fucking hurts me that Square murdered this series before it could even get out of it bed.

[@ci7210]

Square Enix having issues with everything from games they published and whatever happened during development durring Final Fantasy 15 and Kingdom Hearts

[@jonguilt7789]

Got to say, I'm actually glad this one didn't release. While I'd love a return of Kain and a canonical end of the old gods plot and the damnation of the cycle, this game always looked to be Legacy of Kain in name only. Maybe a good place to start of the series would be to actually re-release the first title, perhaps remake it, renovate the others, and then finally giving it some closure.

[@ReaverPrime]

Talk about reopening old wounds... Legacy of Kain is one of my favorite franchise's in gaming. To this day, it still chaps my hide that Defiance has still yet to get a proper closing. Kain is such a well written character. And I absolutely LOVE everything about Raziel. This series is easily my pick for a franchise that I'd love to see be brought into modern gaming.

[@DrGandW]

SqEnix is so goddamn weird at guessing what will succeed and what won’t.

[@Nikelaos_Khristianos]

DEUS EX!

[@CB-py1xh]

Maybe too disconnected from the western markets? Many Japanese companies tend to not release certain games globaly because "they wont sell well in the west" and in 9 out of 10 cases my reaction to that is: "WTF?!? Why??"

[@beepmoo8771]

@@Nikelaos_Khristianos deus ex desvered to die! Sure it's a not super mainstream series that's part of a niche genre that had a relatively troubled development for both of the prequel games but it didn't sell 18 kajillion copies!!!! That means it's bad!!!!!

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@CB-py1xh Publisher won't bring game to the west because there's no market. Pirates get the game, get a fan patch, game becomes a cult hit with more people jumping through hoops to play it than some games have sales Publisher:

[@theLikou1]

The main problem is that they aim for selling it like some big western games. This happened a lot on the PS3/360 generation. They think they can do GTA/AC numbers and when they don't or are not expected to they said it flopped. Even things like Tomb Raider selling 5-6 million was considered something that didn't hit expectations.

[@smugroach4897]

Somebody else actually remembered Urban Chaos. God that game was fun. Even went out of my to 100% it.

[@donavenhollow5709]

I only ever played it in demo form as a kid, i thought it was fun for what was presented lol

[@Raziel-zm3dv]

I loved the PS1 Urban Chaos, the PS2 was very different i didn't have it but i tryed the 1st mission of that game at my cousin PS, all i remember from it people with mask throwing fire bombs at me ...

[@Wet_pizza]

Legacy of Kain, and a Kung Pow: Enter the Fist reference? My day is complete.

[@cstolzenberger]

I really hope Square doesn't let this franchise gather dust. We need a HD re-release of the original games at the very least.

[@BlisteredBlood]

I guess Kain was right when he said this at the beginning of LOK: Defiance. "Given the choice, whether to rule a corrupt and failing empire; or to challenge the fates for another throw - a better throw - against one's destiny... what was a king to do? But does one even truly have a choice? One can only match, move by move, the machinations of fate... and thus defy the tyrannous stars." If there is a sequel to Defiance though, I hope it comes out without any interference on Squeenix's part. Besides the VAs that gave all of Nosgoth life - or unlife, as it were - aren't getting any younger these days. Hell, some of them passed away years ago. So if they choose to do it, they gotta do it hopefully soon. Vae Victus if they do...

[@infjintegrityvsnarcissism7295]

True, some voice actors died, and all but Simon are fairly elderly.

[@zanmaru139]

@@infjintegrityvsnarcissism7295 Bigger question is, would Amy Hennig return to write it?

[@infjintegrityvsnarcissism7295]

@@zanmaru139 I hope so. It's possible perhaps now that she is done at Naughty Dogs. Just one more game done write, with a true ending is all I ask. For all we know the storyline is written.

[@BlisteredBlood]

@@infjintegrityvsnarcissism7295 I suppose it's all in her hands now. More to the point, much as even I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but it's also in the hands of the would-be director who decides to take up the mantle; someone who knows enough and cares enough about the series to see it through to the end. But where do you find people like that? Who's got the brass set of balls big enough and polished to the nth degree to do it and not let the politics of the now get in the way?

[@primepm8861]

Michael Bell, the voice of Raziel, has already outlived Tony Jay, the voice of the Elder God, by a decade.

[@achromat666]

Legacy of Kain is my all time favorite series, and defiance is still one of my favorite games. Thanks for shedding some light on a lot of the madness behind the scenes.

[@Psycheitout]

It's always frustrating how game developers like square seem to feel that they can't do anything without it being a huge expensive AAA project. If square turn around and put out a soul reaver 3 about the size and length of the first two games, that played like the first two games, only with much better graphics and controls and put it out for like 40 bucks. People would go nuts.

[@Kozas15]

It's exactly the same with movie studios. Nowadays(well before pandemic) you either had big blockbuster movie with 200 million budget(similiar in scope to AAA games in gaming world) or some artsy little movie with maybe 5 millions budget(indie games). In both movies and games it seems that everything in between stopped existing like 10 years ago.

[@eddieking6723]

Exactly this. Sometimes a sequel of the game with more story and world building is just fine we don't need the wheel reinvented!

[@jordank6546]

I kinda disagree legacy of kain deserves a bigger budget maybe not 200 mill But still

[@kecukraftwork1988]

Being honest, I'd play it even if it had the old graphics and controls. The story meant so much more for me than the graphical prowess or gameplay itself. Though I appreciate that with gaming as it currently is (I remember GTA5 blog analyses on arguing in favour of different *grass* textures between ports), many people would probably want it thoroughly new and shiny before touching it.

[@Kris-ck2md]

I fucking adore LoK, and I never even heard of this, somehow. Also "We'll be jumping ahead a bit, well but, we'll still be in the past, but..." Sums up the temporal fuckery of the entire series wonderfully.

[@TheSagaOfGregGetsRekt]

Hot take: Nosgoth was an excellent asymmetrical multiplayer game, and a fascinating little side project to the overall Legacy of Kain series; that said, it should have been spun off into its own original IP in order to avoid the fate it inevitably met.

[@PhyreI3ird]

It looked kinda neat actually, and I actually wanted to play it but I didn't have a pc good enough for it. And damn it just wasn't the kind of thing that appealed to the fanbase of the series, OR anybody outside of it. It had no place in the world, at least not without the actual promise of another continuation of the story. They made an expensive to maintain - essentially community funded - game without actually thinking about what audience or potential community existed for it.

[@mike.delia26]

@@PhyreI3ird You can still play it. Just leaving that out there ;)

[@RobRJW]

They should remaster the older titles and release them on current consoles and see how well they sell to see if there's enough support out there to make a future title or Remake the first Blood Omen of Soul Reaver since remake's of older games is a really popular trend now.

[@MrRuano825]

God I wish. The only thing holding Blood Omen back is the weird black hole that is figuring out who exactly owns the rights to it between Eidos, (the late) Silicon Knights and I think Activision (since they might've done something for the PS1 release?). I know someone was trying a fan remake, but I have no idea how that's going.

[@illidin23]

@@MrRuano825 Activision holds the PC rights for Blood Omen 1

[@toiletsinjapan9933]

Thing is, not sure how well some of these games would transfer into modern era gaming. The Blood Omen Series especially: Blood Omen 1 was oppressively difficult, and Blood Omen 2 was, shall we say, a product of its time. Also by the time of Defiance the series wasn't selling very well. Not to mention, if you actually have 1 team making all 5 games, do you add back deleted stuff to Soul Reaver? Do you fix Blood Omen 2s story? If you do that, then you'll have to take out the time shenanigans in Defiance meant to fix some of the problems in BO2 or address cuts from the original Soul Reaver. Although actual bug-free versions of both Soul Reavers would be fantastic.

[@illidin23]

@@Kreusnik Michael bell (Raziel) is retired Tony Jay (elder god) is dead Paul Lukather (vorador) is dead Rene Auberjonois is dead as well I don't know about the others but let's face it remasters is an ideal solution until Square Enix injects new souls into the series and let's face the facts here they will replace Simon Templeman with Troy Baker as Kain despite the fact that Simon wants to do another game.

[@toiletsinjapan9933]

@@illidin23 Sounds to me like you'd have the same problem either way. Very hard to separate such an iconic voice cast from the games themselves. Although I'm pretty sure even back in Defiance a few roles got recast. Didn't they get someone different to play Mortanius, for example?

[@tntalchemist]

I can't help but feel Eidos investing in Ion Storm's first game didn't help them in the early 2000s either

[@huxleyable]

Was Eidos involved with Daikatana?

[@tntalchemist]

@@huxleyable they were the publishers for the game and sunk a considerable sum of money into its development. It also didn't help things when Ion Storm diverted some of those funds to Human Head to try and develop Daikatana 2 around the same time

[@RainaAudron]

Thank you for covering this! Just two corrections - Kain´s and Raziel´s dialogue for Guardian of Light was not newly recorded, they just reused voice clips from the previous games and Nosgoth was shut down after 3 years, not just 1 (2013-2016). Great video as always!

[@TwistedChungus]

It's always good to see Nosgoth's Queen of Heart around.

[@RainaAudron]

@@TwistedChungus Aww, thank you, haha! Wha Happun is one of my favourite YT series to watch :D

[@Darkinu2]

Not gonna lie, seeing the Dark Sun gameplay footage for the first time really makes me wish it got green-lit. The animations and textures look AMAZING for what they'd managed to put out.

[@wandererg5117]

I disagree. I've never hoped for Dead Sun to emerge. It's too disconnected from the original games. It bears the Legacy of Kain name, but it's set in a different Nosgoth that seems tailored for mainstream gamers and looks like it wants to appeal to a broader public by sacrifising elements of what made LoK great. Take the menu's for example. The upgrades, the objectives randomly popping up on screen a la Assassins Creed. It's obvious they wanted the franchise to blend in with the AC gameplay because that was proving succesful. Also, what's up with the guy wearing an office shirt? If this is the path that they wanted LoK to walk, it might be better that the series was never continued. I'd rather have fond memories of a few games that were legendary, that having the franchise's name besmirched in a Game of Thrones like manner.

[@Damon-xf4kt]

It makes fun of lok I'm glad it got canned!

[@josephjennings3146]

Just seen legacy of kain and the fact it was 10 months ago that he said about a what happen on it, and seeing this come out literally the next day is like youtube giving me the backstory for the reason behind it.

[@frostmourne1986]

Guess which franchise just got announced to be sold off today.

[@robinthrush9672]

My brother got me the LoK collection on Steam since I had every game in the series around when it came out (I got a used copy of PS1 Blood Omen at K-Mart) and I never even touched Nosgoth since I don't like PVP unless it's local with my friends.

[@DevilGeneImbued]

Legacy of Kain is a series that has one of the best Vampire stories I’ve seen. Original and tasteful with an equal amount of sophisticated monster society mixed with unholy brutality and blood draining. Playing Defiance (and watching Underworld) as a kid is probably what developed my idea for what vampires should be and how to write them A remaster for Soul Reaver is something that could easily pump money back into the hemorrhaged veins of Square Enix.... but by all means.... bleed yourself into Avengers instead. That’s going so well

[@jean-pierrea5803]

Came back to thia video as soon as I heard the news of the new owners. Hope Kain and Gex will return.

[@000mjd]

Thus hurts in ways people cant even imagine

[@phoenixlich]

I was so proud when i finally beat Soul Reaver 1. game was cryptic af with some of its puzzles. I was then very enthused to beat Soul Reaver 2 with far less difficulty. I never could get into the games where you play as Kain, though. Good Times.

[@SAPProd]

“If a company couldn’t care less about a particular IP, they should maybe think of selling the rights to someone who will.” A LOT of Capcom properties they won’t even put out proper collections for come to mind…

[@brittanybecker170]

* sobs in Konami *

[@SumerianDeathSquad]

Great vid!! Loved that first one to death. Games I wonder about remastering or rebooting are: - Tenchu -nightmare creatures -Onimusha Id love to hear about those.

[@razielmxz]

Probably the What Happened I've been expecting the most ever since I discovered your channel. I remember reading mama Robotnik's exposé on the cancelled LOK games back in the day and being mesmerized by the amount of info available. To anyone who enjoyed this video or the LOK franchise in general, please give that article a try!

[@waterdrinker90]

It's so weird to see games that were huge and succesful when you were a kid are mostly dead now. Oh wow, now that I think of it, most games I loved as a kid are in some kind of limbo right now. Oof.

[@NerdHerd-RP2]

"This is one of those situations where if a company couldn't care less about a particular IP, they should maybe think about selling the rights to someone who will." THANK YOU!

[@kingoflions827]

Yet another series to add to the long list of series Square refuses to give a shit about. I'm not someone who grew up with this series but as someone who has his own share of beloved ips Square refuses to give a shit about my condolences to all the LoK fans

[@TheEmperorHyperion]

And yet they waste everyone's time with dreck like Life is Strange, and garbage like LJN's Trashv- I mean _Disney's_ Avengers.

[@madaction9373]

Congratulations on 400k! Keep up the great work!

[@ShadowLibrarian]

If square enix does not want the property of legacy of Kain they damn well better sell it. Because we all know there's definitely a studio out there that wants it.

[@jcl3005]

While they're at it, they might as well sell off the IP rights to Deus Ex/Thief as well... please?

[@musthakila]

man, the lore and history from this franchise is so rich and amazing, one of the best in video games history

[@Killarem318]

@MattMcMuscles Well, buddy. It took us 3 years to get to this point. The Soul Reaver Remaster. I was so pumped by the news that I had to show my wife this video to explain my excitement.

[@TheChubbyboy93]

Great Epsiode as usual. But I must say the fact we still never had a What Happened for Halo 5 Guardians yet hurts my soul.

[@atreidhd]

The plush just reminded me that we haven't seen the "avalanche of skulls" transition lately, just the red curtain one.

[@Bondonb]

What happen proposal: Dark Sector. Was a fair-to-middling third-person shooter in an era packed full of third-person shooters. But when you dig into how it was originally pitched as Warframe and led to what today IS Warframe, it's got an interesting background.

[@plastefuchs666]

@@MrQwertysystem NoClip has a two part documentary on it already. First part is here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4CoZ2hobdWqfMU

[@Bondonb]

@@MrQwertysystem plastefuchs got you the doc, have the original concept video. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqHVYnd5hrOsnZY

[@fernandodaela]

Most ironic of all, was the last gift that Raziel had given me. The first, bitter taste of that terrible illusion: hope.

[@jackjadoenath7075]

Never expected to see LOK Dead Sun on here, an excellent video Matt and thank you Rhaast!

[@kevinallain2415]

Oh finally talking about Legacy of Kain :D

[@guttsu]

Man I always forget how many Lara Croft games have been shoveled out over the years. Oh and loving how animated the avatar character is this time. Kudos to whoever put in the work on that!

[@saw31489]

Honestly, I was glad that Dead Sun never came out. How in the world can you have a Legacy of Kain series without Kain? It makes no sense. Also, the "human soul in a vampire body" shows that they have no idea what they were doing as that is breaking the lore already. In LoK, a vampire is created by bringing a soul back to its corpse... it's good they didn't get their hands on it

[@Igna_FM]

Nooo... why did you have to do this Matt, mah hart mah soul. I want this series back

[@KarmikCykle]

You have NO IDEA how much I've been wanting an episode on the Legacy of Kain.

[@ARIXANDRE]

Need a new show " How Does it Happun" that Matt can put out so much great content regularly!

[@carlosquevedo8239]

This one stings like you don't even know. Such classic games, the narrative, the characters, the lore... Hopefully one day they will release the rights to a company with the same love for the games as all of us fans.

[@PuNkY-fr]

The Sims Bustin' Out soundtrack at 8:40 Connaisseur

[@kintypoo121]

Love this 'What Happened' series! Always so informative, well-researched and thoroughly fascinating! Also, that Zero Escape music used near the end of the video, love that series!

[@Kakashiownsyou]

Rerelease the first Legacy of Kain, you cowaaaaaarrrrrrrrrdssssssssssss! Also, LoK was the first “all cutscenes movie” video I ever watched/downloaded. I still have it and watch it ~once a year.

[@brittanybecker170]

@@KuroNoTenno it very much is. The Elder God that is copy right legislation has its tentacles tight around that game.

[@Pantsmode]

And 9-ish months later, the Legacy of Kain IP is sold to Embracer Group (THQ, Gearbox) who *has* implied they wanted to work on new projects in the franchise.

[@AndyKazama2]

I've been bingeing Strictly Fantasy lately. This is perfect timing. P.s. those makeship plushies are great quality. I have a killer bean one.

[@staciwhite1256]

Can I just say, the editing on this is superb!

[@DebbieDickens]

I'd like to add that former head of Silicon Knights Dennis Dyack is making what he calls a "spiritual successor to Legacy Of Kain" called Deadhaus Sonata, which is apparently a free to play MMORPG thing much like the game that killed the Legacy of Kain series: Nosgoth.

[@sortedevaras]

Just another franchise Square tossed into a unmarked mass grave.

[@poiumty]

Legacy of Kain was one of the most influential titles during my formative years. You can say I'm a fan and a half. That said, I'm not really seeing anything promising in Dead Sun's leaked gameplay and cinematics. The basis of LoK's pull on our heartstrings was the foundation laid by Amy Hennig and her Shifter project, which morphed into Soul Reaver and the world and characters we know and love. Hiring some new guys to make a new game with new characters, a new story, a new concept and new writers would seem like a risk at the best of times, more so when the concept itself was so... uninteresting, compared to an immortal vampire wraith wielding a freakin lightsaber, travelling through time to avenge what he thought was the betrayal of his maker only to get pulled into a convoluted conspiracy ordained by Fate itself. Maybe it was for the best that they cancelled Dead Sun. Because even if it turned out to be a decent game, you'd have to do more than decent to stand up to Kain's legacy and fans wouldn't have it. A remake needs to happen, however. Remake not only Soul Reaver, but also Blood Omen, the sequels AND defiance. Then re-hire Amy Hennig to write for us the ending we're been waiting for for nearly 20 bloody years in a spectacular feast of closure that will redeem all of the longing and frustration for this tragically mismanaged series. Nothing else will suffice.

[@robsonpommer7464]

I'm not crying, you're crying

[@donavenhollow5709]

Can't wait till the Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 episode. That one should be juicy. (If the game ever releases)

[@Foxcheese]

Im pretty sure all the dialogue used in the LoK dlc for guardian of light is just reused from previous games, not actually new recordings.

[@Carnationpetal]

Yeah, it is.

[@kitten4790]

Legacy of Kain RIP my beloved

[@BiggestGal]

Looking forward to the inevitable doozie that is Matt covering FFXIV 1.0

[@Jebbtube]

You say this was its most famous cancellation, but I'd never heard of this game until literally this video.

[@Whobgobblin]

I’m a young guy, I’d never even heard of the legacy of kain series, but me and my friends played an ungodly amount of nosgoth together in high school when that existed, we were all very sad to see it get shut down, fascinating to hear about how far back this all goes

[@dprototype6431]

Woo, never showed up for one of these so early before! So I’ve never played this game series but I have heard a little bit about the production issues with it, it’s good to hear a more detailed version of that.

[@ZionKraze]

Every time I see the intro, I keep on seeing newer details that I never notice before. Like the bubble having the nuke logo on there.

[@dorksanddragons]

Matt McMuscles has been turned into a marketable plushie! NOOOOOOOOO!

[@MartyEliBowerMusic]

I still want to play this game so much, legacy of kain was one of my favourites back in the day!

[@thub2743]

Miss this series....haha soul reaver...."hey dad check out these cool wings I gre- SPARTAN KICK!!!!

[@mrhop9022]

Just did a survey from Crystal dynamics the other day and they want to bring the series back.

[@Morrttimer]

This is the company that put 10 years into one of the worst final fantasy games ever made and couldn't even make it's money back on an Avengers game as the franchise was at its height in popularity. But they cancelled this game of all things???

[@HunterGendo]

Goddamn this series was done SO dirty. A full remake of blood omen would be amazing

[@raziel4435]

Square Enix should just sell off the IP, they clearly don’t care about or have any faith in it anymore. With regards to Dead sun, it would have been a LOK game in name only by the looks of it, using the basic gist of the lore and themes to sell a game to an established fan base only.

[@solesurvivor5]

It was, the atmosphere and the dialogue was just not up to par with Blood Omen and Sould Reaver.

[@rikowolfin4984]

that's never going to happen until they are literally about to die unfortunately, as there is always a practice in business that is basically "If I can't have it, then no one can!" where, through insane mental gymnastics, a company will burn piles of money to keep the license to something that benefits them in no way, purely to spite anyone else from making anything with it and potentially profiting from it in the future. You would think "Well if they are afraid of that, why don't they just MAKE SOMETHING GOOD OUT OF IT instead of hording it then?" And the paradoxical answer is always "Well because that would cost too much money." of course! Though the fake answer they will actually give you is that they will totally come back to make something with the property, but only when some one else makes something profitable that is similar to that property... or just to slap that properties skin on whatever that popular thing is at the time like with Nosgoth.

[@andrewkaye2108]

Kain. From Simon Templeman's flawless delivery, to Michael Bell's wonderful counterpoint to him as Raziel. I loved when they teamed up in Defiance and I was hoping for a new chapter in Nosgoths existance, Sigh, maybe one day rhat coin will be tossed again and land on its edge and Kain will live again. One can only hope...

[@GrommtheOrc]

I miss "Nosgoth". I really did enjoy the multiplayer loop of it and the asymmetry of the game. But I also approached it completely as an outsider with no prior history of the Legacy of Kain franchise. Didn't even know it was in an existing universe for a long time.

[@Hombie-f6p]

I played it as someone who had enjoyed the series before, albeit one that had by then long given up on seeing another mainline title and liking the style of game apart from that and quite liked it too, was kind of a shame to see it go. I do get for a lot of LoK fans it wasn't what they wanted out of it, I just saw it as a decent multiplayer game that slightly fleshed out a period that wasn't featured much directly in the mainline games anyway. And playing as Razielim was kinda cool tbf

[@yewtewbstew547]

I never played that game but it was actually kinda interesting how it fit into the existing series lore. It was set after Soul Reaver's CGI intro, but before the main character Raziel wakes up hundreds of years later. Technically a lot of it was "wrong" lol, like the razielim vampire (the flying one) really shouldn't have existed because they were purged by the other clans immediately after Raziel's execution. There were basically 7 main vampires at that time. You've got Kain at the top, then he created 6 sons; Raziel, Dumah, Turel, Rahab, Zephon and Melchiah. Then those 6 infected humans to create their own distinct clans. They basically conquered the human empire in Nosgoth and forced the remaining humans to work in giant factories in order to polute the sky and blot out the sun, whilst using them as a food source. But because Kain was essentially cursed at the end of Blood Omen, all of the vampires below him eventually devolved into monsters. So Raziel and his clan would have grown wings. Dumah and his clan grew thick armour plating over their skin. Turel and his clan developed bat-like features and improved hearing, along with telekinesis. Rahab and his clan developed scales and lost their weakness to water, turning into mermen. Zephon and his clan turned into spider-like creatures with the ability to climb walls and create webs to catch prey. And finally Melchiah and his clan, the weakest of them, begin to physically decay and fall apart so they had to survive by patching themselves up with the skin and body parts of their victims. I'm not sure how closely all of that was represented in Nosgoth, not very closely at a glance lol, but that's basically the explanation for why the conflict between the humans and vampires was taking place. As well as why the vampires were all so different from each other.

[@norbzt]

I like how you embellished George Kellion's quote with stuttering lol

[@dbloodymoon]

The AC twist on the video I wasn't expecting AT ALL

[@yakumorisuke9403]

That plushie advert was a work of genius.

[@kutulukutu]

Squenix is it's own Elder God - feeding on the souls of the past. Its Wheel turns for only itself. Perhaps we should tell modern Final Fantasy fans that they worship a giant squid.

[@MoeruOkamii]

Ultros, our lord and beholder

[@TwistedChungus]

@@MoeruOkamii Thank you for the laugh~!

[@Hypeimmune]

Remember, folks, Square is the company that thought that Balan Wanderland would be a good idea. They thought that "I MUST KILL CHAOS!" is going to be a good idea. They thought that forcing Platinum Games to make Babylon Fall a multiplayer will be a good idea.

[@LordArikado]

They also thought that selling Final Fantasy XV for full price with most of the story context told through tie-in movies, anime, DLC, and cutscenes added in later patches was a good idea, then blamed the poor guy they tasked with cleaning up the decade's worth of mess Nomura made with Versus XIII and turning it into an actual product for it failing.

[@nocturnalwolf8714]

So basically, Legacy of Kain nearly got the DmC Devil May Cry treatment

[@daniellouis6665]

omg man, everytime a new video comes out I know why I subbed.

[@Virtzus]

I don't think I've ever seen a LoK fan react positively to Dead Sun footage. And neither did I. Why would anyone who cares about the series want that?

[@INSERTNAMExHERE]

I loved this franchise growing up! Especially LoK Defiance, Blood Omen 2, and Soul Reaver 1 and 2. This series deserves sooooo much better. And i sincerely hope they revive this series with a remaster, or something, as it deserves a much better ending all around

[@davidmartospeinado6444]

I still hope they'll revive the franchise. Just imagining Raziel, Kain and the world of Nosgoth with the power of the new machines/PCs it will be a dream come true if done with love to the franchise

[@worldofthought8352]

LOK defiance has a bittersweet finale hinting Kain would finally prevail. But looking back on that I now realise that was the team dropping an ending the best way they can because they probarbly knew market sales weren’t going to be met.

[@Dreadnautilus]

I heard there was originally going to be a more conclusive ending with Kain killing the Elder God and putting the Soul Reaver away to complete the timeloop but they changed the ending because they wanted to leave room for a sequel.

[@cptmachine]

I was in love with the series to the point I was getting each new release at launch and burning through them at a rapid pace. I hate how the series ended on a cliff hanger.

[@ROCKYPLAYA]

Dead Sun's 2 characters, now that I think of it, remind me of shadow of Mordor and War, with Talion and Celebrimbor.

[@LaytonLoztew]

Shame to see Nosgoth get so much disrespect. Such a great game despite its issues. Wish it could have continued development and gotten the attention it deserved.

[@Xeranad]

So... Square Enix, a company best known for their narrative driven RPGs like Final Fantasy... cancelled a narrative driven game but kept the multiplayer aspect of it... I cannot. Even.

[@ratchetxtreme6591]

Dang , seems like most of KZbinrs I sub to have been getting plushies lately.