Legacy Of Kain Series To See Spin-Off

Following murmurings for some time about returning to the world of vampires, demons and time travel, Square Enix has finally spoken on the matter. After terms familiar to fans were found in AMD driver files at the end of last month, as well as similar discoveries on Steam and the registration of warfornosgoth.com as a domain name by Square Enix; it seemed certain we were to get a new installment.

With the franchise having effectively ended back in 2003 with Defiance, this was exciting news to fans. With the death of Tony Jay (voice of the lead villain) and cancellation of the sixth installment before much work had been made, the franchise has seen little activity for the better part of a decade. Well, at long last it's getting the new title people wanted but it is definitely not what fans expected.

Replying to an article on the matter published by Eurogamer, Square Enix community manager George Kelion confirmed a number of details for fans and cleared up a few rumours. The first among these was that the game would not be present at E3, nor would it be being created by Crystal Dynamics, the developer responsible for many of the series' most recent titles. Furthermore it would not be a Legacy of Kain game per-say, instead being set in Nosgoth but having little relation to the main series itself. As such it is unfortunately extremely unlikely to continue Kain's story or quest to change fate. Furthermore his response specified that it would not be a "traditional or even single player LoK experience."

This is definitely unfortunate news. On the one hand it does show that Square Enix is still interested in the franchise and making use of it. On the other hand making it a multiplayer title is about as far removed from the series as you can get. Including multiple players it is extremely unlikely to be story driven and will likely not resemble what fans have been hoping to see for the last several years. More than a few are already predicting that this will mean the game will be a MOBA, something for Square Enix use in order to compete with the growing market. Given that, beyond Defiance, combat was never the strength of any of the games, this would be a very strange move indeed.

Despite this it was specified by Kelion that "they could not go into tons of detail at the moment" and that "there will be an official announcement in due course." Any thoughts on what the game might be are at best speculation and calculated guesses. All we know for now is that Nosgoth will be being used for a new title of a very different nature and it is still in heavy development. Hopefully the news will help placate the irritation and outrage by fans who are not impressed by this news in the slightest.