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00:10it's coming back to life holy cow i can't believe it i went wow it's been a long time coming
00:19is it
00:2020 years yeah 20 years wow 25 is that right 25 years later when i found out about the remaster
00:27like it existed and the the dead shall rise like i literally physically it fell out of my chair like
00:33like it was like a like a shock people come up and they say oh my god i love raziel
00:37i love
00:38i love the soul weaver oh that god that's the best game ever and i grew up with it and
00:42they say are you
00:43coming back is it coming back and i said i have no idea it's been like being undead being a
00:48legacy
00:49of kane fan for the past 20 years how was traffic good god it was a mess i flew over
00:54most of it you
00:58know legacy of kane is not a small undertaking there's so many aspects of people who care about
01:04it and that are actually taking it on and that's what's exciting to me at this time when it's
01:09resurfacing having the the goal to do it a majority of the team are fans of this franchise and i
01:17think
01:17that drives the passion and excitement for them to be involved so i had soul reaver on the sega
01:23dreamcast and it was one of the small handful of uh games i treasured on that thing and it had
01:29this
01:29world switching mechanic which was just awesome the environment would morph around you like it
01:36wouldn't just flash into another world you'd watch like pillars grow and shrink and everything would
01:40kind of kind of morph between the two worlds and uh and it had this crazy story it was just
01:46awesome
01:47yeah i i it's a series i always wanted to see come back i played blood omen like i rented
01:53that
01:53on the playstation back in the day with its horrendous load times i really kind of came to you know
01:59love
01:59the series with uh soul reaver it's really like exciting to like try to honor you know the history
02:04of legacy of kane raziel in particular always kind of stood out to me and i always was gravitated to
02:10that
02:10story after all this time to have it finally coming back and to have a hand in that is just
02:18the most
02:18amazing feeling i remember when i was a child and you know 12 playing these games and buying the
02:25magazines playing the demos i didn't have the full versions yet like you just play these things and
02:30you're like how did they do this game and over 20 years later and i actually get the chance to
02:35work
02:35in it it's just just i can't even express like i'm so grateful i got this chance uh it's a
02:41huge honor
02:42to be able to you know to be trusted into into these games and come from the fan side into
02:48the dark
02:48side of the game dev and just knowing every look and cranny as my parents were complaining i was playing
02:53these games too much like it came in handy it came 20 years later but it still came in handy
02:59it's really surreal as a fan of the franchise since roughly about the year 2000 so for the last
03:04uh 25 almost 26 years never in a million years would i have thought that i would be a part
03:10of
03:10rosie ellen kane's legacy
03:16i'm james rhodes the vice president and co-founder at bitbot bitbot is kind of a new media company
03:23we do video games film merchandise graphic novels comics primarily of things that we're just passionate
03:31about when we first got involved with the graphic novel and we knew we were going to do a kickstarter
03:37we knew there was a fan base but we didn't know how active because it had been so many years
03:41since
03:42something had really happened and crystal dynamics had sent out a survey and had shared with us that
03:47like a hundred thousand people responded but we didn't know are people going to show up when a
03:53product is released and that first day when we launched the kickstarter the fan reaction was
04:00overwhelming the ascendance video game is our take on expanding the world of legacy of kane which
04:08will be a kind of retro side-scroller experience expanding these characters in ways that people
04:14haven't seen before storytelling and cinematics were just for their time they were really high end
04:23even even the original blood omen i wanted to approach it differently than it had been done before
04:28as a retro side-scroller it's neat because it's a different type of medium that fans haven't seen
04:34much like the game itself this game is modern retro but the cinematics are anime and so we're taking the
04:41franchise into new places and letting people experience it in a different way and i think
04:45the final result speaks for itself super cool yeah it was definitely just sort of like taking the
04:51characters and this very rich and very cared for world and incorporating it into this 2d setting
04:59into this art style that has been pre-established and finding a nice sort of compromise that pays
05:05respect to the original source material we saw an opportunity to partner up with sam betos at freakzone games
05:12who's known for these kind of modern retro games so the big theme here is flight ascendance i think the
05:20biggest kind of revelation of this is that we're actually getting to play as raziel with wings something
05:27new that the games had never explored before was letting players take vampire raziel and actually play
05:33with him and and fly his gaining of his wings is one of the most pivotal moments of soul reaver
05:39as a story
05:40and of legacy of kane as a whole you know in that entire universe we've never played as raziel flying
05:45and i just remember thinking how can we make flight work with a platformer in a way that feels powerful
05:51and epic but also doesn't feel completely overpowered and so we have these very interesting kind of flight
05:57mechanics with the law meter that controls your vampire abilities you can dash around in the air and you
06:03can glide down and there's all kinds of flight maneuvers that you pull off in this game to traverse the
06:09levels and the puzzles and things and so it's all around this idea of keeping yourself airborne
06:14whilst maintaining your law meter and dive bombing against these enemies and just making the most of
06:20all your abilities i found that the vampires they are so strong and agile and powerful but also
06:25a drop of water or a flame can just completely end them we give them flight and we make them
06:31strong but
06:32we also make them rely on their law meter and have to refill with blood and everything then on top
06:36of that we
06:37also open it up and we let characters play as seraph and raziel the attacks for both vampire raziel and
06:44seraph and raziel are different it's like a stab versus a slash but with the counter those two are
06:50switched so seraph and raziel has the splash when countering but vampire raziel has the sort of stab
06:57calling back to that previous variant finding little bits and pieces where we can pay respect to the source
07:05material the biggest challenge in designing the gameplay for this was we have the perspectives of
07:11four different characters all of which have different abilities and different motives seraph and raziel
07:17when you play as him you kind of feel the absence of the flight and these abilities but he gains
07:22his own
07:23strength you know he has his fire bombs and then we also have kane when you play as kane you
07:28feel
07:28it's so powerful you can turn into a swarm of bats you can turn into fog and dash around through
07:34greats
07:34and and dash behind the enemies turn invisible into fog dash behind them and hit them in the back
07:39you feel so so powerful
07:43two arms brothers the blue demon is at our doorstep what appealed to me when i first was introduced to
07:49soul reaver not only was it beautiful and gorgeous and unique for its time it had amazing voice acting i
07:57mean
07:57that's just really what stood out and because it was such a deep complex story you've got to have
08:02a good cast they've brought it to life these were just words on a page and i think a lot
08:06of that credit
08:06goes to michael bell and simon templeman you know raziel and kane so you've come to avenge that filthy
08:13parasite and reclaim his foul heart you're a righteous fiend aren't you is this typo blood that i'm drinking
08:22yeah absolutely maybe we were joking it was a little bit of a dream this idea that like hey
08:26maybe we could get all the original cast back together you know their enthusiasm on their part
08:31to want to come back and do these characters again was actually really really fun to see
08:37it's exciting to do yeah you call time a tapestry if that is so then the loom insists on its
08:48own great
08:48design i mean it's amazing that simon templeman and michael bell returned you know true like absolute
08:56legends ah thorn latch then that is where it must begin you speak of a past i have yet to
09:05make and yet
09:07here you stand shaped by it if hatred brought you to this moment then perhaps it was always meant to
09:16you not as a victim but as an instrument of my will and then anna gun was a part of
09:24the original
09:25cast i mean it's amazing that's a very passionate fan base it's really exciting richard doyle was
09:33excited to return as well how fitting the creature that now hunts you led you on your most sacred kill
09:41when we started talking about new characters i told josh i was like we got to get darren i said
09:46i don't care what voice he does we got we've got to get him yes lady of thorn latch i
09:54am
09:55but know this i did not curse your beloved every time i hear his voice in a game it always
10:03stands out
10:04to me i listen to it and i think to myself who did that voice and i look it up
10:08at least half the time i do
10:09this it's darren de paul i did not guide you to this place child you were drawn here by threads
10:16beyond my reach but the path is not unfamiliar did you hear his cowardly screams when i tore that black
10:25heart out of his carcass and i think a lot of fans thought that they were done you know that
10:29was it
10:30they're back and and fans are going to get to experience that again boom it's us
10:37going back to the original soul reaver in particular the opening cinematic raziel's
10:42theme you know that track was always super cool
10:49clayton is the artist and producer best known as cell dweller he has been making music since the early
10:5690s from kind of industrial metal to game score he just runs a whole spectrum he has a die-hard
11:04global
11:04fan base and you know is known for his unique sound design and high production quality my sound has
11:11always been fairly eclectic it's very electronic it's been orchestral drum and bass side trance
11:17pick a genre or style and throw them in a blender and that's the sound of cellblowers he's doing
11:22original score covering a song from the original game and bringing that to life in a whole new way with
11:30modern production and his unique touch bringing new life into it was part of my goal really never is
11:37my goal with any project i take on to just recreate what came before me i pay homage to it
11:42i feel like
11:43i'm always respectful of it so diving into the score for these albums digesting the sound of it and
11:49instantly trying to reimagine what does that sound like in 2025 and we're talking 25 30 years later
11:56recognizing that these were created in the 90s early 2000s and the technology that existed then
12:01because i was making music at the same time i used a bunch of uh modular stuff which is machines
12:06like
12:06this to create sounds and kind of 90s digital synths these are old machines that were like widely used
12:14in the 90s and and even into the early 2000s so relying on that kind of stuff for some sound
12:19design
12:19heavily influenced the direction and the sonic architecture of the score
12:28putting a game together is no easy feat whether it's a small indie project or a massive triple-a title
12:35it requires a team it requires a group of people that are a passionate and b talented we have a
12:42small
12:42team but we're pretty lucky with with the team that we've got everybody's been very excited about the
12:47project very passionate we're in this stage where we're just really enjoying what we're seeing
12:52like giving fans the opportunity to experience that firsthand and exploring and expanding upon
12:57very iconic moments within the series hearing michael and simon and hannah returning to their
13:03characters and playing as characters that they never got to play before and having fun with this
13:09franchise that we all thought was dead and gone and that's all because of a passionate group of people
13:20here it is here and for an amazing ride
13:24oh
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