Welcome to our deep dive of Dead Sun – the controversial cancelled title in the Legacy of Kain series. Join us as we explore every facet of this title in depth and reveal this Black Cloth like never before.
Chapters:
0:04:13 Development
0:21:26 Story
0:37:36 Characters
0:50:02 Gameplay
1:04:47 Locations
1:10:49 Cancellation and Beyond Death
1:18:29 Conclusion
1:25:34 Credits & Bloopers
Some notable sources used in creation of this video:
Huge thanks to Aevum for extra information and sources!
‘Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun’ at the Legacy of Kain Wiki:
https://legacyofkain.fandom.com/wiki/Legacy_of_Kain:_Dead_Sun
‘The 10 Cancelled Legacy of Kains’ at Neogaf (by Mama Robotnik):
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-10-cancelled-legacy-of-kains-mama-robotnik-research-thread.594576/
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/legacy-of-kain-dead-sun-cancelled-%C2%96-story-information.1139285/
‘The Legacy of Kain Game That Was Cancelled Three Years In’ at Eurogamer (by Wesley Yin-Poole)
https://www.eurogamer.net/the-legacy-of-kain-game-square-enix-cancelled-after-three-years-of-work
‘”If HBO Made Zelda” – The Untold Story Of Legacy Of Kain: Dead Sun’ at Time Extension (by Lewis Packwood)
https://www.timeextension.com/features/if-hbo-made-zelda-the-untold-story-of-legacy-of-kain-dead-sun
‘Dissecting LoK: Dead Sun’ at Reddit (by Limaj Daas)
https://www.reddit.com/r/LegacyOfKain/comments/b16kjm/dissecting_lok_dead_sun_part_i_early_to_mid/
Videos used originally posted by:
Mama Robotnik: https://www.youtube.com/@mamarobotnikneogaf/videos
Slampbell (Hosted at Raina Audron): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS-qhg60oOo3h7dyDweI25BGFTKl9YDX3
Eurogamer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSWA1JpCpBo
source
It was always more interested in Legacy of Kain: The Dark Prophecy. Word has it that game was quite far into development.
Thank you for the video in lenght !
I'm pissed at people not respecting the basic material who gaves the name of the franchise. (Witcher's tv series, the movie "I am a legend", etc. etc. etc.).
If you want to do something else, go do something else. Don't use the names !
Dead Sun might have been an interesting game, by itself.
But that's not really a Lok or SR game.
As "Nosgoth" was a joke…
Maybe there is something to do in a kind of strategic/mmorpg/beat'em'all when Kain has his general vampires, and starts to conquer the world.
There might be places when you can do something a bit different from the firsts games. But that need to be done smartly… and remembering why the firsts gamers played the games, and loved it, even 20 years after. :[ ]
A Legacy of Kain game with no relation to Kain. This is a new peak of the gaming industry. Just make it a new franchise there is no reason to tarnish an existing one with all those kink elements and trashy dialog.
Definitely one of my favourite channels, really appreciate all that you do.
really dont get th eidea of yeha lets remove kain so we can make our own game…….why not jsut hav eit set outside of nosgoth? with its own vampire lore and such?
Dead Sun lost me when those vampire hunters said the F bomb. Showed the writers completely lost the script.
So glad this got cancelled. It's like if Disney tried to wash LoK.
Wenn ich das wieder sehe. Ich vermisse nosgoth. Das war so ein tolles game, bis auf die cheater, hat es echt viel spass gemacht. Ich vermisse auch die community 😢Allerdings frage ich mich wie die Leute heute nosgoth spielen können, da es geschlossen wurde. Ich sehe immer mal wieder wie sie das spielen laut meiner Freundesliste 😂
Auf dead sun warten wir ja schon sehr lange😅 (ca 9 Jahre). das gameplay erinnert einen an Prototype 2. Ich hoffe das wir das bald spielen dürfen. Ich wäre auch mit einem LoK movie zufrieden 😂
Couldve been a good game, if not for this nonsensical script and SE meddling 🙁 Welp, at least we got Nosgoth out of it, it was fun… While it lasted.
This video was very interesting and enlightening and just further cemented my view that the best thing that could have ever happened to the Legacy of Kain fandom was for Dead Sun to be cancelled. Dead Sun COULD have been an interesting and fun game if it had been completely removed from Legacy of Kain and wrote around its own original lore/story with no attachment to LoK whatsoever. For all the lore it tossed aside it mind as well should have been. The most ridiculous and infuriating notion of the modern age remakes of games/movies/etc is to completely "reimagine" a world and its lore, alternatively ignore said lore, or rewrite characters to be so far removed from who they were they are unrecognizable to the original fanbase. Clearly Dead Sun had this in spades. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 give me hope that some old IP's can be brought back and handled with care and respect if put into the hands of the right studio and developers (It helps if said studio is actually independent) but it's rare to see such a thing in the current game landscape where quarterly profit reports are the norm for game companies. From what I've seen, original fanbases are typically ignored at best or demonized at worst in the pursuit of profit.
As much as I adore the Legacy of Kain Series – it is by far one of my most favored games that is dear to my heart – and desperately want it to be brought back and done the justice it deserves… I'd prefer it stay dead. I'd rather remember it fondly for its unique Shakespearean dialogue delivered by top notch voice actors, its CONVULUTED story and the memorable eloquent characters. Better that than witness the likelihood that some other money driven company being the ones to try and revive Legacy of Kain, proclaim "hold my beer" to Dead Sun, and repeat the same mistakes as Dead Sun, but on steroids. Better a fond memory than seeing it bastardized into something that isn't even a hint of an echo of what once was.
Canceling Dead Sun was a mistake on Square enixes part. Considering how far the game weared away from the original series they could have very easily edited a couple of lines of text, redubbed a few voicelines and they would have a competent "spiritual successor" to LoK with none of the baggage to anger fans. Sure they could not use the series name to directly market the game but its not like 2012 players were not anxious to get their hands on some fresh new IPs. Even as a PC only(I doubt the PS3 or 360 could really run the game) title it would have recuperated hell of a lot more money than the absolute 0 Square got from its cancelation.
Plus to be honest the core concept of Dead Sun was absolutely solid. Rebooting the series by taking a break from the main(and at that point very fractured across 2 console generations) story line and exploring an epilogue/side story was absolutely the right call. Even simply exploring the potential ramifications of the original Soul Reaver ending would have provided more than enough meat for both the fanbase and the developers.
That said everything else about the project smells of poop. For example the main character is a overly complicated amalgam of multiple characters with no head or tail. A needless overcomplication born from the need to distance themselves from the original material when a much more elegant and less convoluted solution would have been to make the main character a surviving Razielim that simply evolved far enough to mimic Raziel's abilities.
So glad this got canceled, because this was not LoK despite the title, and this was not the game fans wanted.
We want a conclusion to our unfinished story; we wanted the Defiance sequel The Dark Prophecy that was in the works to be completed and possibly finish the story.
I feel like the cancellation of this title was a net negative and a loss for LOK fans and general audiences alike. I'm as much a fan of the crass dialogue as anyone else, which is to say not much at all. But remember, all that crass language was spoken between short-lived humans living through turmoil, not jaded centuries-old vampires. And this game could've served as a "shoe in the door" for an, at the time, obscure and inactive franchise to maintain relevance and make a comeback with a more "faithful" continuation later. Hell, it definitely had potential to be a fantastic stand-alone game, if a poor LOK game.
We never had full context for any of the cutscenes we saw, still kinda don't actually. We didn't know much of the world Dead Sun was set in besides it being a reboot. We didn't know the full story, it's twist and turns, highlights and ultimate conclusion. We didn't know HOW it's prologue and the scenes we saw set the foundation for and built up to the conclusion of the story. Or what that conclusion even was.
While I didn't care for the dialogue writing, the VA was solid, the characters had potential to grow and surprise and the world seemed interesting to me, especially after seeing that stage production.
Great video guys (another great one) but im glad this game didnt see the light of day ufff….. on the otherhand would love to se legacy of kain dark prophecy release because it would've been a continuation to Defiance and thats what most of us want, Would love to see you guys do a dedicated video on LoK: Dark Prophecy 🙂 Keep up the good work guys
Anytime I hear the words "Call of Duty" and "Inspiration" used together as a positive thing, I know it is the end of more lore-heavy story-based series, since they are dumbing down the story in favor of heavy action and no actual story to speak of, not to mention heavy multiplayer aspects.
It'd be nice to get a hold of this vertical slice so we could play through it ourselves to at least see everything.
Any hope this game back ???
In fact, unlike many, it doesn't seem like a bad game to me, and seeing as they handled that it's an alternate world, I feel like I could have enjoyed it.
Just like the Devil may Cry series had a wild ride D.M.C., which reminds me a lot of this, as it was more down to earth, vulgar, and violent in its depiction. And I liked that one too, unlike many fans.
I was so hyped for dead sun… Love Legacy of Kain to death and despite dead sun not being really related to LOK, the game seemed awesome and full of really great ideas.
I still hope that one day, dead sun will be revived by some publisher although they would need to redo all graphics. It's a shame because the game seemed so far in development.
Squeenix mismanagement, they really did their Western IPs dirty.
this game should be in public hands to be finished
"Go Cheese"!
Glad this was cancelled. This is clearly not LOK. This could have been it's own game though.
Regardless… this presentation is probably more interesting than what the game would have been. Everything I had seen of the game itself looked and felt clunky and amateur. It lacked atmosphere and finesse.
I see the LOK series evolving into something like Bloodborne…. this is more like a batman or spiderman game
This is the most cosmically epic video I've ever watched about this lost VG, thank you so much for giving it to us, we infinitely appreciate it. Although: I almost died of laughing with blooper at the end 🤣🤣🤣🤣 you guys are the best ❤️ greeting ad so much love from Cuban🇨🇺 fans of you and this beautiful franchise of ours ❤️❤️❤️