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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 dreamcast
01:23and it was one of the small handful of games i treasured on that thing and it had this world
01:29switching mechanic which was just awesome the environment would morph around you like it wouldn't
01:36just flash into another world you'd watch like pillars grow and shrink and everything would kind of
01:40kind of morph between the two worlds and uh and it had this crazy story it was just awesome
01:47yeah i i it's a series i always wanted to see come back i played blood omen like i rented
01:53that
01:53uh on the playstation back in the day with its horrendous load times i really kind of came to
01:58you know love the series with uh soul reaver it's really like exciting to like try to honor you know
02:04the history of legacy of kane raziel in particular always kind of stood out to me and i always
02:09was gravitated to that story after all this time to have it finally coming back and to have a hand
02:16in that is just the most amazing feeling i remember when i was a child and you know 12 playing
02:23these
02:24games and buying the magazines playing the demos i didn't have the full versions yet like you just
02:29play these things and you're like how did they do this game and over 20 years later and i actually
02:34get the chance to work in it it's just i just can't even express like i'm so grateful i got
02:40this
02:40chance uh it's a huge honor to be able to you know to be trusted into into these games and
02:45come from the
02:46fan side into the dark side of the game dev and just knowing every look and cranny as my parents
02:52were
02:52complaining i was playing these games too much like it came in handy it came 20 years later but it
02:58still came in handy it's really surreal as a fan of the franchise since roughly about the year 2000
03:04so for the last uh 25 almost 26 years never in a million years would i have thought that i
03:09would
03:09be a part of rosie 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 gonna show up when a product
03:53is released and that first day when we launched the kickstarter the fan reaction was overwhelming
04:01the ascendance video game is our take on expanding the world of legacy of kane which will be a kind
04:09of
04:09retro side-scroller experience expanding these characters in ways that people haven't seen before
04:19storytelling and cinematics were just for their time they were really high-end even even the original
04:24blood omen i wanted to approach it differently than it had been done before as a retro side
04:30scroller it's neat because it's a different type of medium that fans haven't seen much like the game
04:35itself this game is modern retro but the cinematics are anime and so we're taking the franchise into new
04:42places and letting people experience it in a different way and i think the final result speaks for
04:47itself it's super cool yeah it was definitely just sort of like taking the characters and this very rich
04:53and very cared for world and incorporating it into this 2d setting into this art style that has been
05:01pre-established and finding a nice sort of compromise that pays respect to the original source material
05:08we saw an opportunity to partner up with sam betos at freak zone games who's known for these kind of
05:14modern retro games so the big theme here is flight ascendance i think the biggest kind of revelation of
05:22this is that we're actually getting to play as raziel with wings something new that the games had never
05:28explored before was letting players take vampire raziel and actually play with him and and fly his
05:35gaining of his wings is one of the most pivotal moments of soul reaver as a story and of legacy
05:40of
05:40kane as a whole you know in that entire universe we've never played as raziel flying and i just remember
05:46thinking how can we make flight work with a platformer in a way that feels powerful and epic
05:51but also doesn't feel completely overpowered and so we have these very interesting kind of
05:56flight mechanics with the law meter that controls your vampire abilities you can dash around in the
06:02air and you can glide down and there's all kinds of flight maneuvers that you pull off in this game
06:08to
06:08traverse the levels and the puzzles and things and so it's all around this idea of keeping yourself
06:13airborne whilst maintaining your law meter and dive bombing against these enemies and making the most
06:20of all 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
06:32but we also make them rely on their law meter and have to refill with blood and everything then on
06:36top
06:36of that we also open it up and we let characters play as seraph and raziel the attacks for both
06:42vampire raziel and seraph and raziel are different it's like a stab versus a slash but with the
06:48counter those two are switched so seraph and raziel has the slash when countering but vampire raziel
06:56has the sort of stab calling back to that previous variant finding little bits and pieces where we can
07:03pay respect to the source material the biggest challenge in designing the gameplay for this was we
07:10have the perspectives of four different characters all of which have different abilities and different
07:15motives seraph and raziel when you play as him you kind of feel the absence of the flight and these
07:21abilities but he gains his own strength you know he has his fire bombs and then we also have kane
07:27when
07:27you play as kane you feel like so powerful you can turn into a swarm of bats you can turn
07:32into fog and dash
07:33around through greats and and dash behind the enemies turn invisible into fog dash behind them
07:38and hit them in the back you 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
07:56i mean that's just really what stood out and because it was such a deep complex story you've got to
08:01have
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
08:21that i'm drinking yeah okay maybe we were joking it was a little bit of a dream this idea that
08:26like
08:26hey maybe we could get all the original cast back together and their enthusiasm on their part to want
08:31to come back and do these characters again was actually really really fun to see yeah it's exciting to
08:38do you you call time a tapestry if that is so then the loom insists on its own great design
08:49i mean it's
08:50amazing that simon templeman and michael bell returned you know true like absolute legends ah thornlatch
09:00then that is where it must begin you speak of a past i have yet to make and yet here
09:07you stand
09:08shaped by it if hatred brought you to this moment then perhaps it was always meant to
09:17not as a victim but as an instrument of my will and then anna gun was a part of the
09:25original cast
09:25i mean it's amazing that's a very passionate fan base it's really exciting richard doyle was excited
09:33to 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
09:46i said i don't care what voice he does we got we've got to get him yes lady of thornlatch
09:53i am
09:54foolish but know this i did not curse your beloved every time i hear his voice in a game it
10:03always
10:03stands out to me i listen to it and i think to myself who did that voice and i look
10:08it up at
10:08least half the time i do this it's darren depaul i did not guide you to this place child you
10:15were drawn
10:15here by threads beyond my reach but the path is not unfamiliar did you hear his cowardly screams
10:23when i tore that black heart out of his carcass i think a lot of fans thought that they were
10:28done
10:29you know that was it they're back and and fans are going to get to experience that again boom it's
10:34us
10:37going back to the original soul reaver in particular the opening cinematic raziel's theme
10:42you 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 cell dwellers 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 my
11:37goal with any project i take on to just recreate what came before me i pay homage to it i
11:43feel 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 because i
12:01was making music at the same time i used a bunch of uh modular stuff which is machines like this
12:07to
12:07create sounds and kind of 90s digital synths these are old machines that were like widely used in the
12:1490s and and even into the early 2000s so relying on that kind of stuff for some sound design heavily
12:20influenced 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
12:34title it requires a team it requires a group of people that are a passionate and b talented we have
12:42a small team but we're pretty lucky with with the team that we've got everybody's been very excited about
12:47the project very passionate we're in this stage where we're just really enjoying what we're seeing
12:52life 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 anna returning to their characters
13:04and playing as characters that they never got to play before and having fun with this franchise that we
13:11all 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
13:25you
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