Legacy of Cain

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Legacy of Cain
LegacyofKain-logo.jpg
developer Silicon Knights
Crystal Dynamics
Publisher Activision
Eidos
First title Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996)
Last title Legacy of Kain: Defiance (2003)
Platform (s) PlayStation , PS2 , PS3 , PSP , PS Vita , Xbox , GameCube , Dreamcast , Windows
Genre (s) Action adventure

Legacy of Kain is a computer game series from Crystal Dynamics , which belongs to the action adventure genre and is about the fight between vampires and humans in the fictional realm of Nosgoth .

overview

The game series Legacy of Kain (English f .: Kain's legacy ) was developed with five parts for various game consoles and Windows , whereby all parts have only appeared on the PC and the Playstation family. The first game in the series, Blood Omen , was programmed by the Canadian game developer Silicon Knights , all subsequent titles by Crystal Dynamics .

The protagonist of the series is the vampire lord Kain, who was chosen by fate to become the keeper of balance in the world of Nosgoth. His name is an allusion to the biblical Cain , who is seen in modern vampire stories as the progenitor of the blood-drinking undead. The Legacy-of-Kain series has no direct biblical references, but the realm of Nosgoth represents an independent fictional world with a far-reaching background story. Cain was originally a person who was murdered as a young nobleman and then resurrected as a vampire. After taking revenge on his murderers, Cain first tries to get rid of the vampire curse, but eventually finds pleasure in his new state of being and realizes that the vampires, as superhuman beings, play a leading role in Nosgoth. He becomes more and more entangled in the armed conflicts of the people until he finally learns that he must sacrifice himself in order to restore the balance of power in Nosgoth and to heal the land. Cain decides against self-sacrifice and instead decides to bring the land under his rule. His greatest adversaries are the sarafans, an order that has set itself the goal of destroying vampires. When he has finally defeated the Sarafans, he turns their slain leaders into vampires who are to serve as his sons and governors from now on . One of them is Raziel , who becomes the second main character in the series. When he develops faster than his master, Cain tries to destroy him and throws him into the river of souls. There, Raziel is apparently awakened to new life by an old deity who takes advantage of the fact that Raziel cannot die. Since then, Raziel has tried to get revenge on Cain and his "brothers", one of whom escaped him. The eponym of the Soul Reaver two-parter is on the one hand the legendary sword that Cain owned and then merged with Raziel, and on the other hand the utterance of the old god that Raziel would henceforth be his angel of death, his soul reaver. At the end of Soul Reaver, Cain opens a gate through which he escapes into the time of the Sarafans. In the course of Soul Reaver 2, Raziel also uses streams of time to research the history of Nosgoth and find answers to his questions. At the end of Soul Reaver 2 he comes into physical contact with the material Soul Reaver, who tries to devour his soul. As a result, he falls back into the clutches of the old deity, who binds him for 500 years in the underworld because of his rebellion. The "old deity" later turns out to be a parasite that has established itself in Nosgoth and whose power grows through every soul that its soul-robbers catch for him.

Paradoxes through time travel

In Nosgoth every being has a predetermined path to follow. In Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen and also in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 , characters repeatedly travel through time to explore or influence the past. By doing certain things, they also cause paradoxes that shake history to its foundations. The so-called grandfather paradox is solved in such a way that both the past and the future are reshaped in such a way that the final state (the point in time of the paradox) remains causally logical. The protagonists forget the events from the old timelines and new memories arise that the player can only understand as the game progresses. So "Blood Omen 2" plays chronologically before "Soul Reaver 2", but the plot of the first game represents an alternative timeline, which arose from the time paradox of the latter game.

Games

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

Blood Omen was developed by Silicon Knights and released in 1996 for the PlayStation and Windows . The game is shown in isometric perspective . The plot begins with the murder of Cain and his vengeance, which eventually leads him to the sanctuary of the Pillars of Nosgoth, where he learns that his fate is related to the impending doom of Nosgoth.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

Soul Reaver was developed by Crystal Dynamics and released for PlayStation , Sega Dreamcast and Windows in 1999. As in all subsequent games in the series, the third-person perspective was used. The plot and gameplay take place from the perspective of Raziel, who returns as a ghostly creature after his murder in order to take revenge on his former master Cain and his degenerate vampire brothers.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2

The direct continuation of the story of Soul Reaver appeared with an improved graphics engine in 2001 for PlayStation 2 and Windows . Raziel's campaign of revenge against Cain is continued and the role destined for him by fate is examined in more detail. The concise German dubbing voice of Raziel from the predecessor was replaced by that of Udo Schenk , u. a. Voices of Kevin Bacon and Gary Oldman , replaced.

Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2

The fourth part of the series was released in 2002 for PlayStation 2 , Xbox , GameCube and Windows . The action takes place before Soul Reaver and revolves around Cain's fight against the Sarafans and his way to ruler over Nosgoth. After Cain (spoken here by Martin Kessler , the German dubbing voice of Nicolas Cage ) was defeated by the powerful Lord Sarafan, the influence of the vampires was pushed back and the Sarafans established an authoritarian regime in the capital Meridian. When Cain awakens from a death-like sleep after a long time, the hopes of the underground vampires turn to him.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance

The fifth and so far last part of the series was released in 2003 for PlayStation 2 , Xbox and Windows . In this game, which has features of a finale, you take on the role of the two main characters, Kain and Raziel, who, as it may seem at first, try to defeat each other in a final battle. It turns out after the fight who is the real danger.

Game ports

In early 2012, Square Enix announced that it would publish the titles in the series developed by Crystal Dynamics on the Steam sales platform . Due to the lack of development costs, there was no XInput control variant and the existing DInput control was preferred in addition to the keyboard + mouse control. However, this problem can be avoided with fan patches via XPadder.

Web links