Cancelled Legacy Of Kain Game Footage Surfaces

Climax Studios developers break non-disclosure agreements to discuss the cancellation of Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun after developing it for three years.

Despite the positive critics and the sales success, the Legacy of Kain series has been asleep for 13 years, with the last game in the franchise, Legacy of Kain: Defiance, released in 2003. Square Enix is holding the rights to the series, but is yet to release a reboot like it has done with similar titles they've acquired, such as Tomb Rider and the Hitman episodes. There existed a new game in the series entitled Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun that was in production for three years at Climax Studios, and now developers decided to share all the gory details from that project.

Although this game was supposed to be set in modern times, it was not planned to be a full reboot of the series. On the contrary, it had to feature the Elder God's return from previous games. As for the gameplay, Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun would've embraced principles of The Legend of Zelda. There would be a hub world, with diverse dungeons attached to it. Players would need to search the dungeons, fight enemies, solve puzzles, battle with bosses, and gain a new ability which would help them to explore the world more thoroughly.

Square Enix and Climax's vision for this game were at odds. Square Enix allegedly wanted Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun to be as simple as possible, with some of the devs describing parts of the game as "insultingly easy." Issues like these combined with a worry that the game wouldn't sell has led to Square Enix's decision on closing this project down.

This was a frustrating time for the developers at Climax Studios, as a leaked footage from last year shows that the game was worked on for far too long and yet all the work went to waste. Perhaps Square Enix will revive the franchise at some point someday, but for now, fans will have to hope and dream about what could have been.

Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun was in development for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.