Sunday 15 November 2015

Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun Kain´s death confirmed

Our fellow dedicated LOK fan Divine Shadow just unearthed the suspected controversial idea in the cancelled Dead Sun game. According to his source, Kain was to travel back in time to kill his younger self and thus a new timeline, which is seen in Dead Sun, would emerge and would be void of both Kain and Raziel. Basically, Climax went down the route we have been told by the games would be the worst outcome (fatal paradox) and undid all of Kain´s plans to restore Nosgoth. This further strenghtens the notion, that Climax writers knew very little of Legacy of Kain storyline (we have seen that before) but Kain not being in a Legacy of Kain game? No, thank you. Divine Shadow also mentions that the game was cancelled due to poor design and narrative choices upon which millions have been spent.

Monday 5 October 2015

Soul Revenant project update

I apologize for being silent for a few months, but we are back with some new content to show you. Our environmental artist Francesco has  finished the Underworld section of the game and now moved on to modelling the Abyss and the Sanctuary area. These are the current screenshots from the Underworld area (work-in-progress):

 The vortex of souls

Tunnel leading out of the main chamber

In front of the Warp Gate

 The exit to the Underworld

The exit to the Underworld in material realm

Dumahim training chamber

In spectral
On the way to the Sanctuary

Sunday 27 September 2015

Lara Croft and the Faces of Evil

I did a little bit of research on Lara Croft figures recently and the results I found, in some cases, were really amusing. It is amazing how much of bad merchandise is out there but given Lara´s popularity, it is not suprising. What is surprising is the price on some of these items is way too high for the „quality“ of the build and accuracy to Lara herself. This article is just for fun with my descriptions below:



  1. Exhibit no.1 seems to have been sleep deprived for days and the surprised look on her face does not help the impression either. Her ponytail is also very thick and resembles more like another substance. 2/10

  1. This statue looks a bit better than no.1, however, the exaggerated features (especially the „neandertal“ brow) look really odd. 3/10
  2. This poor figurine has seen its better days for sure. The makers obviously heard nothing of body proportions and her giant shorts and shoulders make her look like she just fell of a cliff and this is her mangled corpse. There are straps on her chests for some reason and she wears a really thick red lipstick on her tiny face. One of the worst entries on this list indeed. 1/10
  3. This one is supposed to represent Lara from the movies, so it tries to look more like Angelina Jolie, which I do not think was fully conveyed. 5/10
  4. This is quite rare and expensive figure (around 70 dollars). While the body seems faithful and accurate to what she is like in Tomb Raider Anniversary, her face is quite atrocious with giant nostrils and bags under her eyes. 6/10
  5. Lara here isn´t too bad, however, her face does seem a bit off and her thick eyebrows and prolonged forehead does not help either. 5/10
  6. This Lara has huge eyes and lips resulting in a bit of a grotesque look unfortunately. 4/10
  7. Lara here looks quite alright, the only problem is a very long neck and a big „hair bump“ on her head. 7/10
  8. This was a set including a crocodile and Lara. Given her vacant look on her face, she does not seem to be too scared of holding crocodile´s mouth open like that. 4/10
  9. This Lara from Legend is one of the more expensive ones but it looks really good and worth the money. 10/10
  10. Another rendition of Angelina Jolie´s Lara, very bland looking. 4/10
  11. This was doubted „voluptous“ in the description, but the look on her face is more offputting if anything else. 5/10
  12. This „terminator-look“ Lara is another Angelina Jolie figurine, while a bit more distinct than the other two, the prolonged forehead makes her look like she is balding. 3/10
  13. This is a TR3 catsuit Lara. Her chin seems to be a bit too short, but it is not too bad otherwise. 7/10
  14. This is TR2 wetsuit Lara and I dare to say one of the best looking ones on the list in terms of being truthful to the in-game renders. Not too expensive as well, I really recommend it! 9/10
  15. The new Tomb Raider reboot got its own figures as well and this one has a lot of joints and accessories. It seems to be quite faithful to the game, so another good one to pick up! 8/10
  16. Angelina Jolie clones were quite a few and this one does not fall out of the line either. It seems just as bad as the others with a hint of trying to go for realism, which did not really pay off in the end. 4/10
  17. Lara even got herself to be a bad bear plush toy, if that´s your kind of thing.
  18. Based on Angel of Darkness, this statue seems alright. 7/10
  19. This is what happens to Lara when she rolls around in mud too much. The paint job on this figure is very sloppy, there are much better TR 2013 figures out there than this. 4/10
  20. Cheap version of no.10, this figure is trying to be faithful to Legend, but not as successfully. She seems to have too much of a make-up on her face and the eyes are quite off as well. 5/10
  21. Underworld rendition of Lara is actually quite alright and one of the better cheap ones. 8/10
  22. If this is the expression Lara has each time she exercise, then I rather not see it. It´s not one of the worst, but not exactly spectacular either. 4/10
  23. This is a very expensive statue released for the Temple of Osiris game and damn, it looks awesome (her hair seems to be a bit too big though). 9/10
  24. This is a very big statue and is very expensive. Her face seems alright but it is not quite looking like Lara though. 6/10
  25. TR4 Lara from the intro cinematic has her face covered to protect her from sand, but her very strangely shaped chest section takes the attention. 4/10
  26. Another Jolie Lara, one of the better ones I´d say. 4/10
  27. Angel of Darkness statue, quite large, but not really sure it´s any better than no.19, her jaw line seems to be too wide. 6/10
  28. TR3 Lara with a weird tiny nose, not much else to say here really. 5/10
  29. This is what would happen when you would try to inflate her head like a baloon... 2/10
  30. The only young Lara on this list with her head melted into her neck and with weirdly protruding breasts. 3/10

Bonus points for people who spotted the Lara Croft men´s underwear in the picture. Who would wear it anyway? 

Disclaimer: All the pictures are from Ebay listings and belong to their respective owners.

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Nosgothic Realm reborn

After many years of waiting, Nosgothic Realm finally got its visual and structural update it needed. The new site was designed from scratch by its owner, Tenaya. She ported over all the fanart and fanfinction and even included a new section for Nosgoth. There are some amusing things to be discovered as well. For starters, I recommend looking at the Blood Omen 2 page.

You might also wonder what happened to the old forums hosted on Yuku. Unfortunately, they have been taken over by CyborReaver and closed to all members for unspecified reasons. Therefore, the current link will take you to the facebook group instead, until Nosgothic Realm will find a suitable host for its new forums.

UPDATE: The new forums are now found here. The old forums are now archived on the old site.

Monday 29 June 2015

Soul Reaver reforged by Man at Arms

We have all been patiently been awaiting this day and today the legendary blade Soul Reaver was reforged by Man at Arms. Look at the spectacular process of forging piece of metal into a fully functional replica. My only gripe with it is the inaccurate face structure (mostly eyes and nose), wrong placement of the guards and lack of any details and spirals curling the wrong way on the hilt. All in all, it is still a great looking blade and huge thanks to the guys who made it!


Final result:

Compare it with Michael Craughwell´s version:


Or this version, by Omega Artworks:


Livebyhonor´s sword:

Thursday 25 June 2015

Blood Omen The Complete Soundtrack

Hello LOK OST lovers!

In collaboration with TheClayKinderSurprise, we bring you the full soundtrack for BO1 ripped directly from the game (including opening and closing cutscenes). This soundtrack includes both PC and PS versions of certain tracks as well. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Music extracted using the latest Blood Pill. More info in the read me file!


Friday 5 June 2015

Paul Lukather died (1926-2014)

In the unfortunate news, I have found out that our beloved and talented voice actor, Paul Lukather,  died last year in October, aged 88. He did some of the most incredible voices in the gaming industry, voicing the vampire Vorador in all five Legacy of Kain games. Some of you might remember he also voiced the President in Metal Gear Solid 2. Nevertheless, he will be greatly missed.

Saturday 30 May 2015

Powerslave Ex (Exhumed) released on PC!

Night Dive Studios just posted on their facebook page that the PlayStation version of Powerslave/Exhumed has been fully ported over to the pc. I have tried it and it runs great with lots of new possibilities such as chossing between gamepad/keyboard+mouse and featuring updated graphic options. I highly recommend this game to anybody who likes exploring and action mixed together with fighting aliens in Egypt. What´s there not to like? Huge thanks goes to Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal who worked hard to make this project happen.

Download and more info here!



UPDATE: The download links have been taken down. It seems that Kaiser ran into some possible copyright issues and we are awaiting further notice.

Sunday 12 April 2015

Soul Reaver Soundtrack v6

Hello!

Here is a re-worked sixth version of the Soul Reaver Soundtrack. I have drastically reduced its size (only 800MB now), while the quality was kept intact. This time it is only in Ogg Vorbis format, as the FLAC version was redundant because the source files do not reach such high bitrates. There are also numerous small fixes present (renamed several tracks, track length unified further - more in the Read Me file). I hope you´ll enjoy this latest and more compact rendition of the awesome SR1 soundtrack!



NOTE: Please download the latest version 7.

Sunday 5 April 2015

Soul Reaver 2 Soundtrack PS2 version *UPDATE*

Hello there fellow LOK OST lovers!

Today I finally bring you a complete soundtrack from Soul Reaver 2 entirely recorded from the PS2 version, which has better sound than the pc version. I have reorganized the tracklist a little, removed some tracks, which were redundant, and also exported it in a more compact size (400MB), while still remaining high in quality. Use 7zip to open the first part and it will automatically extract everything. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do!



Update: I have since discovered a new track which is found on the US version of the Air Forge demo and included it in the latest link below.

Wednesday 1 April 2015

Rahabim in Nosgoth!

Today I was playing around in a private match and was exploring the maps. I´ve accidentaly dive bombed into the sea in Freeport as Sentinel and when I went back to the armory, I saw this:


Maybe it has to do something with  poissons d'avril...

Friday 27 March 2015

Looking for an animator to help with Soul Revenant!

The SoulRev team is looking to hire an animator skillfull in Blender/Unity. We are a dedicated team, which works for free and would like to find a new member, who is passionate about the Legacy of Kain world (not an absolute requirement, but reviewing and assessing the original material is necessary) and has enough time to dedicate to our project (starting immediately, but work is flexible). If you are interested or have anybody to recommend, please send me a message via my blog or at my email address ancientvampire(at)centrum.sk. Thanks a lot!

Friday 27 February 2015

The anticlimactic end to the series or how Dead Sun wanted to be the next Soul Reaver *UPDATE*



The latest situation with the leaked Dead Sun footage thanks to the diligent work of Divine Shadow and those who provided the material brought a considerable shock and disbelief, both positive and negative. A certain disparity can be observed between the LOK fans on the various forum and Facebook discussions as some people deeply regret its cancellation (even going so far as to make a petition to make the game finished) or on the other side, rejoice in its demise (and making an anti-petition to keep it dead). This article was written at the behest of my own conscience as the series' loyal fan for over a decade and prompted mostly by the new information sprouting on various sources, which have brought us a bit closer to uncovering the truth regarding Dead Sun's development and subsequent cancellation, which might be omitted by many people if not analyzed and brought into light. I do not claim that everything in this article is absolutely truthful, as it all depends on the sources. However, I wanted to bring as much information about this situation as I could, so you yourself can be the judge.

Firstly, let's go back into early 2009, the year when the preproduction work on Dead Sun began. Square Enix decided it was time to bring Legacy of Kain back from the dead (ever since the cancellation of The Dark Prophecy) and asked several game companies, including Climax, to make a pitch for a new LOK game concept. Apparently, Climax's pitch focusing on a human possessing a vampire was the one, which caught SE's eye and was given a green light to start working on. Later that year, a survey took place and a handful of people had been contacted regarding the next LOK game and their preferences in the direction of the story and artwork. The game was in preproduction for three years and in 2012, there was a playable vertical slice demo build and a teaser trailer reveal ready for E3, which was prepared by Square Enix's own CG department. However, something went wrong as the only gothic looking game announced was Dark Souls 2 instead and there was nothing mentioned regarding Dead Sun. It appears, that it must have been prior to E3, when the executives at SE decided the game was not good enough to be showcased and thus pulled the plug on the entire project, after spending possibly millions on its production. What led them to such a decision?

While SE does not comment on specific reasons on Dead Sun's cancellation, the former community manager George Kelion touched on the subject on NeoGAF and Eidos Forums saying that „LOK: Dead Sun just wasn’t the right game, at the right time…“ Other information, that we have is from the original post by Divine Shadow, where he uncovered the game's existence. The situation with the cancellation of the project appears to be less than ideal, as Divine Shadow's thread elaborates upon: „One source recalled that staff came in at weekends to continue working on the game, while higher ups already knew it was cancelled.“ Other sources also say, that the game was not good enough, it had questionable story background, and that the studio could not deliver what they promised, as the scope of the game was too much for their team.

 
This leads us to the overall reaction of Climax and several supposed employees about this discovery. The anonymous employees posted in response to Divine Shadow's findings on NeoGAF. One of them stated, that the game was very much like Legend of Zelda, with open fields and hub worlds to explore: „The thing to remember is that this bit is a small chunk of what was essentially Hyrule field - an expanse designed to lead from place to place. The person playing this is really taking their time with a bit of the game that has zero missions - the actual structure was far more Zelda/Soul Reaver than this might appear.“ 


The other developer claims that the game would have pushed Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 to their limits and that it was even considered for release as a PlayStation 4 launch title instead to get around the technical limitations of the old consoles. He compares the game to Shadow of Mordor, which was very successful, but warns that Dead Sun was just too ambitious and had nowhere near the budget or manpower needed to successfully pull such a game off. The third source sheds a somewhat less optimistic light on the subject, however. His coworker's account of the game's more or less troubled development:


1) The game had been in development for almost 3 years when squeenix shut it down
2) The project lead had no interest in Legacy of Kain and was quoted as saying "Soul Reaver was garbage". My coworker went on to say that the guy had terrible ideas and what they had at the end was a mish mash of poorly put together half ideas.
3) It was hot trash and needed a bullet put in it.“

Another post from this source to confirm his identity:

Climax's video game director Sam Barlow and narrative designer/writer James Smythe also provided their thoughts on Dead Sun's reception by the fans. It is understandable that they would be upset about their game's being cancelled while the multiplayer component survives with their assets still being used, but these tweets make me question their integrity. Here are the most interesting exchanges:

I have a major issue with this comment. Firstly, the aforementioned timeline is wrong and incorrect in many places, as it was pointed out later by Aradiel, and it also does not account for any of the events which occured in Defiance. Being a developer of a possible future LOK game and relying on incomplete fan source material is very unprofessional, to say the least. It shows that Climax's knowledge of the source material was very limited. They also used that timeline example as a very poor reason to convince the higher-ups in SE not to continue Kain's story.

A brief overview of why that timeline is wrong:
  • Vorador was always executed (his revival being part only on the fourth timeline, carried it by Raziel in Defiance, but it got scrapped from the game),
  • Kain always refuses the sacrifice, history is not rewritten,
  • Moebius got his Soul Reaver from the elder Kain (Kain sends it indirectly to Moebius after he is done with his main quest)


A long-term Realmer, Aradiel, called Barlow out on this timeline issue, however, and the only response he received is that it is not Barlow's problem to resolve the series' story issues. This begs the question: why would he then even decide to make a game bearing the LOK name in the first place if he is afraid of its complexities? The story of the LOK games is certainly not that easy to grasp at first, but it's that depth that has an irresistable appeal to many of the fans and the reason why we are still here after more than 10 years without any game. Instead, we have a company which does not trust itself and this brings us to the following:


They resorted to creating a wannabe Soul Reaver clone in a relatively "safe" area in the distant future after the events of SR1, further evincing that they had no confidence in the notion of actually continuing Kain's legacy. That is even further exaggerated by the uncovered teaser trailer, in which Gein boldly claims he is a "soul reaver“ after being burned to death by submerging into water.


Upon pointing out the problem with Dead Sun's dialogue, Barlow's and Smythe's responses are yet again on the edge of being mocking:


Further, Smythe claims that the footage has zero story in it, yet several cutscenes were leaked as well as a story entry found in the inventory from which we can deduce more than enough (the sun worship, humans being sterile, vampire hunters, vampires becoming wraiths, etc.). Another thing he sarcastically points out is that he should have used the words "forsooth“ and "verily“ to make the dialogue better, yet none of those words ever appeared in the series. 

In conclusion, yet another chance of a possible LOK singleplayer sequel got buried and who knows if there will be more. One cannot but help to make a similar parallels as with the DmC reboot and its rejection by the DMC fans because of its different portrayal of the story and the characters despite not being a bad game. In the end, it was probably for the best that Dead Sun did not see the light of day and remained unfinished. It is certainly not an easy task to make a proper LOK game and it never will be, so let us hope, that in the future we will get a more competent developer who will not be afraid of the grand task of continuing Kain's legacy. There is limitless potential to expand this universe, so many interesting settings to explore (such as the Ancients vs Hylden war, the Sarafan era, Kain's empire, etc.), so here's hoping that they will listen to us and avoid wasting everybody's time and money next time.

Vae Victis!

Special thanks to Divine Shadow/Mama Robotnik for his excellent detective work and Aevum and Hash'ak'gik888 for proofreading and overall help with the text.


UPDATE: Apparently, this article (a mobile version of it for some reason) got the attention of James Smythe and Sam Barlow and they seemingly do not deny any of it. At least we can all agre that the universe was in LOK favour indeed, when DS got cancelled.


And some more stuff on Twitter:


Sources:
 

Original post:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=153305912&postcount=1

Petition:
https://www.change.org/p/square-enix-bring-back-legacy-of-kain-dead-sun?just_created=true


Anti-Petition:
https://www.change.org/p/square-enix-keep-dead-sun-dead-son?just_created_and_shared=true


Developer no.1:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=153310271&postcount=68

Developer no2:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=153384707&postcount=265

Developer no.3:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=153692348&postcount=347









RT on twitter:
https://twitter.com/RichardTeph/status/570632095908941824


Monday 23 February 2015

Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun video leak *UPDATE*



Divine Shadow unearthed yet another fantastic lost footage - an introductory demo part, which was presented to SE by Climax Studios. You can read more about the find on NeoGaf. The gameplay is very reminiscent of Prince of Persia/Shadow of Mordor with combat from the new Batman games. However, despite being claimed to be an actual LOK sequel, this game´s backstory supposedly would have erased all of what happened during the LOK series and instead, rebooted it similarly to what DmC did. It appears to be very loosely based on the fragments on the existing lore (mentioning Willendorf, even the Soul Reaver is present, albeit in a bastardized form, almost resembling a dagger). Somehow the vampires were all blue soul eaters in the future and could shift just like Raziel ("My body exists by the force of will"), thus completely cheapening his unique mechanic. Inexplicably, the main character vampire Asher got a human soul (Gein) overtake his body, as he tried to devour him, which does not really make sense. Also, for some strange reason, the humans became infertile all of a sudden and the story involved a very old vampiric child and even Elder God came to join the party. Spectral realm makes an appearence as well, but is portrayed like nothing we remember from previous games and resembles more of a time shift than actually shifting into a ghostly realm. Many of the mechanics and assets seen in the video came to be used in the multiplayer part of the game, Nosgoth. The dialogue is also rather crude in comparison to the delicate writing we were accustomed to in previous titles.

Personally, I believe this could have worked as a standalone game much better, without the complexities of the LOK franchise tagged on to it, as what it appears from the scraps of information we have from the game, Climax did a really bad job at trying to preserve the continuity of the franchise. It is a very big shame, because it shows some potential. However, in my opinion, given the fact the story ignores almost everything, which was setup by the previous games, it was for the best that it was cancelled. If anything, Dead Sun resembles much more the weird style of Akuji the Heartless than the vampire series. This post by the Hylden points out other things, which I wholeheartilly agree on as well.

UPDATE: More information leaked and now there is an E3 2012 trailer and a pre-boss cutscene on Youtube as well. All thanks to Divine Shadow´s work! If you have any doubts about Asher/Gein being a replacement for Raziel, do not look further. He basically shamelessly quotes Raziel:
"I am Destroyed. I am reborn. I am a soul Reaver." 

 To quote the words of my friend, Aevum:
"Yes, got to agree it comes off truly cynical to me, either ignorantly or malevolently using a long-outdated fan timeline as a weapon to bury the LoK sequel people actually desire in favour of your own IP. Square wants a new Kain game, so of course let's strip out every single aspect of the LoK series' identity, bar the minimum possible lip service, and hijack it as a vehicle for our own purposes. That's bound to go well.

I do think the bare bones of the Dead Sun concept were ideal in principle: a whole new character, distant era, etc, all brimming with potential to revitalise the series. It's just a real shame Square and Climax could botch the execution in almost every way; even the aspects which do pander to fans completely miss the mark. "I am a Soul Reaver!" Yeah, cheers for that, Gein. But I guess this is the kind of steep price one must pay for ignorance of the little things; specifically, millions upon millions of British sterling..."




Paradox pointed out that there is actual Raziel found in the footage! Skip to 1:24 of the video and you can see him lying on the ground. Here is a pic highlighting him: