- 9 hours ago
Legacy of Kain Ascendance Official Behind-the-Scenes Video
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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
00:20is it
00:2020 years yeah 20 years 25 is that right 25 years later when I found out about the remaster like
00:28it
00:28existed in the Dead Shall Rise like I literally physically it fell out of my chair like like it
00:34was like a like a shock people come up and they say oh my god I love Raziel I love
00:38I love the Soul
00:39Weaver oh that god that's the best game ever and I grew up with it and they say are you
00:43coming back
00:43is it coming back and I said I have no idea it's been like being undead being a legacy of
00:49Kane fan
00:49for the past 20 years how was traffic good god it was a mess I flew over most of it
00:55you know
00:59legacy of Kane is not a small undertaking there's so many aspects of people who care about it and
01:04and 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
01:40of kind of morph between the two worlds and 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
01:53on the PlayStation back in the day with it it's horrendous load times I really kind of came to you
01:59know love the series with uh Soul Reaver it's really like exciting to like try to honor you know the
02:04history of like a skip cane Raziel in particular always kind of stood out to me and I always was
02:09gravitated to that story after all this time to have it finally coming back and to have a hand in
02:17that is just the most amazing feeling I remember when I was a child and you know 12 playing these
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 just okay I can't even express like I'm so grateful I
02:40got this
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
02:58came in handy it's really surreal as a fan of the franchise since roughly about year 2000
03:04so for the last 25 almost 26 years never in a million years would I have thought that I would
03:09be a part of Rozzy Ellen Kane's legacy I'm James Rhodes the vice president and co-founder at BitBot
03:20BitBot is kind of a new media company we do video games film merchandise graphic novels comics primarily of
03:30things that we're just passionate about when we first got involved with the graphic novel and
03:35we knew we were gonna do a Kickstarter we knew there was a fan base but we didn't know how
03:39active
03:40because it had been so many years since something had really happened and Crystal Dynamics had sent out
03:45a survey and had shared with us that like a hundred thousand people responded but we didn't know are
03:51people gonna show up when a product is released and that first day when we launched the Kickstarter the fan
03:58reaction was overwhelming the ascendance video game is our take on expanding the world of legacy of Kane
04:07which will 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 even
04:23even the original Blood Omen I wanted to approach it differently than it had been done before as a retro
04:29side-scroller it's neat because it's a different type of medium that fans haven't seen much like the game itself
04:35this game is modern retro but the cinematics are anime and so we're taking the franchise into new places and
04:43letting people experience it in a different way and I think the final result speaks for itself super cool
04:48yeah it was definitely just sort of like taking the characters and this very rich and very cared for
04:55world and incorporating it into this 2d setting into this art style that has been pre-established and
05:03finding a nice sort of compromise that pays respect to the original source material we saw an opportunity
05:09to partner up with Sam Betos at Freak Zone games who's known for these kind of modern retro games so
05:16the big
05:17theme here is flight ascendance I think the biggest kind of revelation of this is that we're actually
05:23getting to play as Raziel with wings something new that the games had never explored before was letting
05:30players take vampire Raziel and actually play with him and and fly his gaining of his wings is one of
05:37the
05:37most pivotal moments of Soul Reaver as a story and of Legacy of Cain as a whole you know in
05:42that entire
05:42universe we've never played as Raziel flying and I just remember thinking how can we make flight work
05:48with a platformer in a way that feels powerful and epic but also doesn't feel completely overpowered and
05:54so we have these very interesting kind of flight mechanics with the law meter that controls your
06:00vampire abilities you can dash around in the air and you can glide down and there's all kinds of flight
06:06maneuvers that you pull off in this game to traverse the levels and the puzzles and things and so it's
06:11all
06:11around this idea of keeping yourself airborne whilst maintaining your law meter and dive bombing against
06:18these enemies and just making the most of all your abilities I found that the vampires they are so
06:23strong and agile and powerful but also a drop of water or a flame can just completely end them we
06:30give
06:30them flight and we make them strong but we also make them rely on their law meter and have to
06:34refill with
06:35blood and everything then on top of that we also open it up and we let characters play as Seraf
06:39and Raziel
06:40the attacks for both Vampire Raziel and Seraf and Raziel are different it's like a stab versus a slash but
06:48with the counter those two are switched so Seraf 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 pay
07:03respect to the source material the biggest challenge in designing the gameplay for this was we have the
07:11perspectives of four different characters all of which have different abilities and different motives
07:16Seraf and Raziel when you play as him you kind of feel the absence of the flight and these abilities
07:22but
07:22he gains his own strengths you know he has his fire bombs and then we also have Kane when you
07:27play as Kane
07:28you feel so powerful you can turn into a swarm of bats you can turn into fog and dash around
07:33through
07:34greats and and dash behind the enemies turn invisible into fog dash behind them and hit them in the back
07:39you feel so so powerful two arms brothers the blue demon is at our doorstep what appealed to me when
07:48I
07:48first was introduced to Soul Reaver not only was it beautiful and gorgeous and unique for its time
07:54it had amazing voice acting I mean that's just really what stood out and because it was such a deep
07:59complex story you've got to have a good cast they've brought it to life these were just words on a
08:05page and I think a lot of that credit goes to Michael Bell and Simon Templeman you know Raziel and
08:10Kane
08:10so you've come to avenge that filthy parasite and reclaim his foul heart righteous fiend aren't you is
08:20this typo blood that I'm drinking yeah maybe we were joking it was a little bit of a dream this
08:25idea
08:26that like hey maybe we could get all the original cast back together and their enthusiasm on their
08:31part to want to come back and do these characters again was actually really really fun to see yeah
08:37it's exciting to do yeah you call time a tapestry if that is so
08:49I mean it's amazing that Simon Templeman and Michael Bell returned you know true like absolute legends
08:56ah thorn latch then that is where it must begin you speak of a past I have yet to make
09:06and yet here you
09:07stand shaped by it if hatred brought you to this moment then perhaps it was always meant to not
09:18as a victim but as an instrument of my will and then Anna Gunn was a part of the original
09:25cast I mean
09:26it's amazing that's a very passionate fan base it's really exciting Richard Doyle was excited to return as
09:34well how fitting the creature that now hunts you led you on your most sacred kill when we started
09:42talking about new characters I told Josh I was like we got to get there I said I don't care
09:47what voice
09:47he does we got we've got to get him yes lady of thorn latch I am but notice I did
09:59not curse your beloved
10:01every time I hear his voice in a game it always stands out to me I listen to it and
10:05I think to
10:06myself who did that voice and I look it up at least half the time I do this it's Darren
10:11DePaul I did not
10:12guide you to this place child you were drawn here by threads beyond my reach but the path is not
10:20unfamiliar did you hear his cowardly screams when I tore that black heart out of his carcass I think
10:27a lot of fans thought that they were done you know that was it they're back and and fans are
10:32gonna get
10:32to experience that again boom it's us going back to the original Soul Reaver in particular the opening
10:41cinematic Raziel's theme you know that track was always super cool Clayton is the artist and producer
10:52best known as cell dweller he has been making music since the early 90s from kind of industrial metal to
10:59game score he just runs a whole spectrum he has a die-hard global fan base and you know is
11:06known
11:06for his unique sound design and high production quality my sound has always been fairly eclectic it's
11:13very electronic it's been orchestral drum and bass side trance pick a genre or style and throw them in a
11:20blender and that's the sound of cell dweller he's doing original score covering a song from the original
11:26game and bringing that to life in a whole new way with modern production and his unique touch
11:33bringing new life into it was part of my goal really never is my goal with any project I take
11:38on to just
11:39recreate what came before me I pay homage to it I feel like I'm always respectful of it so diving
11:45into the
11:46score for these albums digesting the sound of it and instantly trying to reimagine what does that sound
11:51like in 2025 and we're talking 25 30 years later recognizing that these were created in the 90s early
11:582000s and the technology that existed then because I was making music at the same time I used a bunch
12:04of modular stuff which is machines like this to create sounds and kind of 90s digital synths these are
12:11old machines that were like widely used in the 90s and even into the early 2000s so relying on that
12:17kind
12:17of stuff for some sound design heavily 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 AAA title
12:35it requires a team it requires a group of people that are a passionate and be 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
12:47the project 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 very
12:58iconic moments within the series hearing Michael and Simon and Hannah returning to their characters
13:04and playing as characters that they never got to play before and having fun with this franchise that we all
13:11thought was dead and gone and that's all because of a passionate group of people
13:20here it is here for an amazing ride
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