Tuesday 1 April 2014

Amy Hennig IS coming back! *UPDATE*

Today we inform you that a super secret source from inside Square Enix HQ has emailed us about what every fan yearned for - that Amy Hennig is retaking Legacy of Kain! More details follow soon!

UPDATE: Our source decided to reveal himself and also sent pictures confirming the discussions he had with Amy. He says his driving force to contact her is that he has been missing in the game industry for ten years now and he got bored while being trapped in Soul Reaver. He stressed that the fact that he is not in the latest game called Nosgoth is just outrageous and demands a new LOK Game to be made!

Here are some incriminating photos he sent us:



According to him, he and Amy got their heads together and conceived a new idea for a LOK Game. Then they went back to Square together and pitched them the new title Legacy of Raziel: The Tales of the Talking Sword, which will be in the same style as critically acclaimed games such as Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us. He did not say when the production on this new LOK game will start, but we can only hope it will be soon.


On another note, Nosgoth is giving away special skin of Justin Reaver! Don´t miss this once in a year opportunity to get you this slick haired sexy golden Reaver that everybody wants!

Thursday 6 March 2014

Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog

According to various sources and her twitter account, Amy Hennig departed from Naughty Dog on 3rd of March and currently is unknown her next career move. You can read more on her career here and here. I wish her all best and thank her for all the amazing games she provided us with.

UPDATE: In the latest news it claims Amy wasn´t forced out as the original post claims to be the case.

Sunday 19 January 2014

Nosgoth Live Q & A Transcript published

Since the live Q & A from September provided a lot of answers for the new mp game Nosgoth, I have decided to transcribe it into a text form so it is easily accessible any time. I apologize that it comes so late. It was done in November, but because of some unforseen consequences it had to be postponed. Huge thanks goes to my fellow friend and LOK admin Aevum, who helped with the transcript and its proofreading. Hope you enjoy!

Friday 3 January 2014

Competition winners and more SoulRev screens *UPDATE*

The winners of the Christmas competition are Tube Reaver for the fastest email with all the screens and he won Trine 2 Complete Edition and Baziel, who won Serious Sam double pack. Alas, I didn´t get more emails, so I hope you at least enjoyed the SoulRev demo. I have currently finished the material version of Necropolis and going to tackle its spectral version. I have also used Daniel´s higher res textures for the chapel and started working on the northern vastes part. Hope you like the new screenshots! (They are still WIP so I haven´t tweaked a lot of the textures yet for example).

UPDATE: I have uploaded more screenshots below.
















Tuesday 31 December 2013

2013 roundup on the Ancient´s Den

Since this is the last day of the year I´ve thought I´ll give you a short re-cap of all that has happened. This year was quite an interesting one. January started with a discovery of interview with Amy Hennig on EGM.

In February, it was discovered that SE has registered a new domain name called "War for Nosgoth", this was one of the first clues that something´s up. Further confirmation of this occured in May, where title WarforNosgoth was included in the AMD patch logs but SE denied any comments on this. However, it was more than for certain that Legacy of Kain was about to return from the dead and it was only matter of time when this will be announced publicly as well.

Following this in June, Divine Shadow revelead a shocker - for the last three years,a new Legacy of Kain game has been in the works. Dead Sun took us hundreds of years after SR1 sd the player would play as a hybrid of human/vampire Gein/Asher. For certain reasons, this game was canceled after almost three years. While Dead Sun stayed dead, another project still kept going. George Kellion, Community Manager of SE London, acknowledged the existence of a new game called Nosgoth, finally putting out any doubts about a new installment awaiting. On another note, Ken McCulloch has been arrested for pornography charges, a very sad end for a co-creator of BO1. Meanwhile on the Eidos forums, moderator the Hylden has released an awesome looking separate texture packages for Defiance which enhances the textures in the pc version,.

In July, I have been editing Kain from Defiance (thanks goes to Hylden who got me the model) for my SR remake and I also have released my BO2 in-game soundtrack for download and at this time I was contacted by very interesting sources inviting me to a special event regarding the new LOK game.

In August, I have started working on Soul Revenant more, getting together with my programmer and we got quite a few things done. I have also compiled an FAQ regarding Nosgoth as many misinterpretations and questions has arised concerning the new game.

September held the biggest event in my life so far, the Nosgoth Community Day to which me and other dedicated LOK fans have been invited. Later in the month the embargo was due so we could publish our accounts of that  amazing day on our sites. Also Blood Omen 2 finally got on Steam and I published an interview with one of the series´s writers, Carol Wolf.

October brought upon us the early alpha testing in Nosgoth and enabled European and American players to apply later in the month.

In November, the LOK Wiki was updated with several articles and more article regarding lore was posted on Nosgoth´s blog.

And at last, in December there have been Nosgoth blog posts regarding the Razielim and gave us a missing piece of their history. As the Chronoplast Turns by my friend Umah made it´s return with exclusive content after long dormancy. I have finally uploaded all the parts of my SR1 walkthrough as well.

I have released a playable demo of Soul Revenant and more screenshots. Progress is going pretty well, yesterday I have added outer part of the Cathedral complex:




When putting the sections of the Cathedral together, I discovered some rather surprising overlap of areas, which will be a bit more challenging to fix as you can see below:



As my YT channel got 1 million total views, I´ve decided to make this thank you video for all those who have been watching, so thank you again!


I wish you happy new year!

Best wishes,

Raina Audron

Saturday 21 December 2013

Soul Revenant demo and Christmas Contest

Hello my dear readers,

since Christmas and New Year are just around the corner I decided to make something special for you this year. I have prepared a short demonstration on how my SR remake goes along and with it, I´ve thought it might be fun to get you involved in a small contest and you can win some games too!

In order to win one of the prizes (Steam game keys) you have to find 20 Christmas presents which I hid within the demo. Download the demo and the instructions on how to participate. The instructions also contain the controls, so don´t forget to download it as well! Enjoy!

Note: Please make sure you download the correct file as pictured below. Also no installation necessary for you to play.

Download SoulRev Demo  - Mediafire

I hope you will like the demo and have fun with the competition!

Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you all!

Saturday 14 December 2013

Soul Revenant Update - Adding Raziel´s territory

After a two month break I decided to continue with work on the project. In the last few days I have been adding decoration to the Sanctuary of the Clans and also worked on putting together Raziel´s stronghold and added to the game. I still have to add the spectral version of it, but as it is a rather tedious and long process, I´ll try to add in the next few days. If all goes well and I´ll get together with my programmer next week, I might be able to release a playable demo before Christmas. Just bear in mind it is only a small demonstration as you can´t really fight anybody (I´ve placed few enemies in so you can see them in few spots), has bugs and collision problems, have to iron those later. Like us on facebook if you support our cause, thanks!

Below are screenshots from the newest build and a sample of higher res flags which I made to replace the old ones.








Tuesday 10 December 2013

Razielim´s fate unearthed - Nosgoth blog articles

New blog posts regarding Razielim have unearthed their fate after Raziel´s execution into the Abyss. With Kain gone, the Lieutenants assaulted the remaining Razielim. However around hundred of them were spared, as they were pupating in the Underground city. Once emerged in their new state of change, they found themselves trapped underground. Starved for blood and with no knowledge of their sire´s apparent death, they became desparate and try to claw their way out. However, their beautiful forms suffered when they could not feed on blood and their skin hardened. Once they found their way out, they ventured through Coorhagen and flew to reach their clan territory in the West only to find Dumah.

Razielim blog part 1

Razielim blog part 2

Razielim blog part 3

On another note, Razielim won the poll regarding a favourite class in Nosgoth:

Saturday 7 December 2013

TAD YouTube updates

I have finally finished uploading all the parts of my SR1 walkthrough on my TAD YT channel. I´m planning to do a little special thank you video for New Year if my total views reach one million before the end of the year (only 4 000 views left!), so I hope you will like it. As I couldn´t record the credits from the pc version, I have decided to recreate it in HD and widescreen format since such a great credits deserve to be in high quality. Also, I´ve uploaded a way on how to defeat Kain under a minute. Both the credits and the second Kain encounter video are taken from part7 of the walkthrough, but I uploaded them separately so it´s easier to watch them. Hope you enjoy!

SR1 Credits - HD remake

How to defeat Kain in under 1 minute

Soul Reaver Walkthrough part 6 - Ruined City

Soul Reaver Walkthrough part 7 - Oracle´s Caves

Friday 6 December 2013

And the Chronoplast turns once again

My friend Umah Bloodomen just re-launched her LOK dedicated page As the Chronoplast turns (ATCT). It has a lot of interesting and never before seen content such as the article concerning Umah´s visit to SE, where she explains her experience with Nosgoth on the Nosgoth community day, you can also listen to the exclusive podcast interview with Umah, Blincoln, Tenaya and the Hylden (they each give their accounts and feelings about Nosgoth) and  a fun spoof interview with Simon Templeman, or check her Galleries page on her cosplay and photos from the community day. Also check the Hylden´s section as he will post new screenshots from his work in that section

Saturday 23 November 2013

Nosgoth and LOK Wiki blog updates

There have been quite a few blog posts on the Nosgoth blog page, so here is a quick summary of all of them (ascending by their post date) and blog posts from the LOK Wiki:

The fall of Razielim - part 1
The first part of the awaited blog about the Razielim.

This blog posts introduces the backstory for the Red Sisters of Anarcrothe focusing on the story of their founder, Elustra. Being helped captive by the exiled Melchahim, she used the invention of naphtha of the Melchahim leader Laderic against him

Community First Impressions of Nosgoth´s Gameplay
George Kellion unearths several photos and shares his personal view of the awesome community event held on 8. 9. 2013.

This blog post introduces the background story of Scouts, which found refuge in the twisted walls of the Dark Eden. Dubbed the Watchers of the Dark Eden, other human factions joined their cause over time. The Watchers were the first ones to realize there was a conflict between the vampire clans and seized their chance to liberate Coorhagen from the vampire influence.

Hunters - Sworn to exterminate the vampire scourge
From the distant memory of the Sarafan oder, the vampire hunters fight back against the clans and successfully recapture the mountain town of Valeholm.

Arrogant and proud just like their master, the Dumahim are skillful in weaponry and armory and love to play with their prey. Keen onto subjugating humans back into their place, the Dumahim join the war for Nosgoth alongside other clans.

The inhabitants of the harsh lava covered land and the protectors of the smokestacks which shield all the fledglings from the harmful rays of Nosgoth´s Sun.

LOK Wiki admin Baziel posted a very interesting second part of his Nosgoth Community Day experience with details more on the event itself.

Also, check out these new pages on Elustra, Laderic and naphtha on the LOK Wiki.

Thursday 24 October 2013

Nosgoth now available for players in Europe and North America

The newest blog post on Nosgoth´s official page states, that there are more countries available now for closed alpha testing, so check your emails for alpha keys if you are from Europe or North America. Bear in mind, that any items you receive during play will be deleted after the alpha phase is over. Also, there have been three screenshots released in the media gallery. The upcoming matches are played on schedule as seen here so check back often if you got the invite for testing.

Monday 14 October 2013

Nosgoth Closed Alpha starting and blog updates

According to Gamasutra, Nosgoth´s Closed Alpha invites are being sent as of today. However, it will only involve players from Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherland, so if you are from those countries, check your email for the invite. Hopefully the rest of us will be able to join us the war soon. Vae Victus!

On other notes, Nosgoth´s official page updated its blog with some interesting entries regarding the lore - about the land of Nosgoth, humans and vampires.

Friday 4 October 2013

Razielim and Turelim re-design

The look of the vampires from Nosgoth have been quite a controversial issue so far. I think Dumahim and Turelim should have visible fangs and pointy ears as all vampires have in Nosgoth, but since they are fledglings, I think it makes sense for them to have five fingered hands and toes. However, I think that Razielim should have the features of highly evolved vampires so I added the bat wings, cloven hands/feet, fangs, glowing eyes, pointy ears and a banner. I also changed the Turelim in the newest concept art - it begged for those ears. What do you think?



Monday 30 September 2013

Nosgoth Live Q&A scheduled for tonight

The Q & A has been moved from 16:00 CET to 20:00. George Kellion together with Bill Beacheam, the Design Director at SE, and Corey Davis, the Design Director from Psyonix, will answer questions from the Nosgoth forums and twitter. I will update this post with new info as questions will be answered during the Q & A.

Watch it here.

UPDATE: For all of those who missed the live stream, you can watch it on YouTube.

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Square Enix London– Nosgoth Community Day 2013

With Nosgoth being unveiled today, I can finally share the awesome secret I had to safe guard the last few months. I was invited over to Square Enix London to participate in a community event to test Nosgoth. Follow Nosgoth on twitter for more updates, visit the official Nosgoth site and see the trailer on YouTube. 
 For all of you worried that Nosgoth is multi-player game, George Kellion reassures, that they are fully aware of Legacy of Kain being primarily sp games and would like to do an sp game in the future. Simon Woods also wrote an excellent article regarding the bad reception on numerous sites.
 The following is my account of how I perceived it from the day we got the emails, until the day of the event. If you want to know how Nosgoth actually plays and what it offers as a game, visit Bazielim´s awesome in-depth analysis of the game on the LOK Wiki. Also, check Lucinvampire´s blog article on Nosgoth and the newest interesting addition is by Blincoln on TLW.

Where to even begin... It all started with the rumours of a new LOK game being in Steam database and rest assured, it was confirmed. We got a new game after so many years, it almost seemed unbelievable at first. It appears we have not been forgotten as it might have looked like on the outside, which was proven by the existence of Dark Prophecy and Dead Sun games, Guardian of Light LOK DLC packs, recurrent easter eggs in TR games by Crystal Dynamics... It seems there was always something during those long years, though our heart´s wishes haven´t been fulfilled - to get a new game which wasn´t canceled for a change.

When I got the first email saying I was chosen to participate in an upcoming Nosgoth event and be one of the first people to try it out, I couldn´t believe what was I reading – and the reaction was according, spend like 10-15 mins walking and jumping around the room in joy. Months past and everything was being setup for the event (thank you Umah, George and everybody else involved) and the big day came closer and closer. Then about a week before the event, the list of people attending was revelead and I couldn´t believe it at first – Blincoln, Tenaya, Ardeth, Divine Shadow, Vampmaster, the Hylden, Bazielim and other LOK fans were attending as well. It was like reading an A star movie cast list, all the legends I have been looking up to through these long years all would be participating in one event, now that´s what I call an epic meeting.

With everything packed into my backpack (I went only lightly since it was just two nights), my best friend picked me up and drove me to the airport. The flight to Vienna took only an hour and soon we were landing and the next flight was pretty short too. A slovak woman was sitting in front of me on both flights and her husband later helped me to get a ticket to metro and get on a correct train. It took about an hour of tube travel and then I arrived at the Wimbledon station. Luckily the Broadway is pretty much one long street so finding the hotel wasn´t too difficult.

When I went into the hotel I passed a group of people of which I was suspicious might be THE LOK fans, but I wasn´t sure, so I rather went upstairs and dropped of the backpack to my room. I couldn´t see anybody in the hallway upstairs, so I went back down to the lobby and when I looked more closer, I started to recognize some of the faces. First one I spotted Umah and I couldn´t believe my eyes I am meeting her in person. I was so shocked to find them all standing there in front of me and right away, Umah introduced me to Tenaya, which I was really looking forward seeing as I haven´t heard from her for so long. Then I greeted with Blinc, Ardeth, Mike, Vampmaster, Jeffers, Divine Shadow, The Hylden and Ber who arrived just after me. I couldn´t stop smiling, as it all just seemed so unreal, all of us LOK fans in one place in one moment of time. One could almost await some huge paradox occuring right there... Luckily the only thing being erased from existence were pizzas that night. Finding the right place to sit with food and being able to talk proved to be a challenge on the busy street of Broadway, but in the end we found space for all of us and stil being able to eat our food. We discussed various things from LOK universe and had lots of fun pointing out the stuff we found funny or interesting (hit of the evening was Kain´s figer pointing and the consequent Mind the Gap meme). I was very amused by Divine Shadow who was very talkative and lots of people made some very interesting observations that night (which I can´t seem to remember unluckily).

After our appetite was satiated we went back to the hotel and since some of us were not going to bed yet, Divine Shadow offered we could use his room to meet up in there. So eight of us gathered, occupying every single space (was pretty tight xD). The Hylden showed us stuff he has been working on, a new high poly Kain model which looked really good, Vampmaster his success with exporting armatures for models out of Soul Reaver 2, Tenaya her new amazing design she made, while I showed a playable demo of Soul Revenant. It was lots of fun and we talked until late night. When the Hylden was falling asleep on Divine Shadow´s bed, it was about good time to say good night and retreat back to our rooms. I wish I could have gotten sleep that night, the bed was really comfy but I was so full of adrenaline, thoughts and expectations for Sunday, so I couldn´t fall asleep at all...


I didn´t know what to do early in the morning so I was lurking around my floor at eight to see if anybody was awake yet. I met Blinc by coincidence in the hall, saying he didn´t sleep too much either, so we decided to go downstairs for some breakfast. Had some English breakfast - bacon, toast, sausauge with tomatoes - was really good. Later Ardeth and Mike joined us together with Vampmaster and Divine Shadow. There were still few hours left until noon, so we decided to stick around in the lobby some more and we all signed a big Thank you card that Umah prepared for George. Then when everybody was ready we set off to see the fulcrum of where our destinies turn. Weather was pretty fine, wasn´t raining too much. Only after about like 10mins we arrived at the place and all got tagged with nicknames/names at the reception. After that we finally went to the bowels of SE London HQ (almost got lost on the way with Hylden) and were greeted by George, Trevor, Jay, Cat and Bill in front of the Square Enix desk. There were lots of Final Fantasy figures behind glass and Lara figurines across the halls of which I somehow forgot to take a picture of...

Then the time came to invite us to the Nosgoth room with huge posters and screens with Nosgoth logos, and eight computers. The huge poster had three figures on left and three on right, each side tinted with appropriate color. When I saw the winged one, I wondered if that could be a Razielim, but wasn´t really sure. The other two I´ve thought are humans at first since they were missing the pointy ears and didn´t have visible fangs. They turned out to be Turelim and Dumahim (which kinda reminded me of Kratos, lol). Humans seemed to specialize in long distance weapons. While settling in I noticed more LOK fans joined from UK which were not with us the previous night. I was especially happy to meet Bazielim from the famous LOK wiki and finally being able to thank him personally for his awesome work on the site. I also met Omega, Ammon, Moesph, and the ever-enthusiastic Lucinvampire. It was really awesome to be among people as excited as I was about the whole event. When everything was set, George showed us presentation of the game, which we could have seen before anybody else could. It consisted of a trailer, showed us the new Nosgoth map, and Nosgoth key features. Full of anticipation the game testing began afterwards. I played the match later on, so I just observed how others play in the meantime. Graphics pretty impressed me and from what I´ve seen it seemed fun. When it was time, I sat next to Trevor and he explained the game controls and gameflow to me. It wasn´t difficult to get into, however, I kept pressing wrong keys at times, especiallly Tab instead of Q for the special abilities. I play lots of mp though I still sucked when playing as vampires at first. My favourite class quickly became the Dumahim, which I would compare to the Hunter from Left4Dead games. I´ve tried others as well, but I always found myself wanting to play as Dumahim. Razielim were interesting to play as but as the Hylden pointed out, the camera made it hard to see and assault victims from the air and I particularly didn´t like the way flying initiated. Overall though, I wish I could spend more time with each class as it seems with certain combinations of classes you can achieve some interesting strategy. When we played as humans I think it was better as we all tried to stick together in a group and take the vamps on which worked. Too bad the session was so short, I would have liked to play it much longer. The top 8 players then had a match against each other and 4 best won awesome BBI Kain figures (was so envious, but they totally deserved them).


After the prizes were given, we had some cool chats with members of the staff. I was really interested to hear Jay talk about Soul Reaver and how he´s been part of the company for so long (even longer than the furniture there xD). And at the end we could ask questions about the game and although not all of them could have been answered at the time, it was fun. It seems they know what they´re doing, since Psyonix has a decent portfolio of mp games and the promise of more custom stuff later in the development sounds like a good idea. All of us also got some Nosgoth goodie bags consisting out of a Nosgoth branded bag, two mouse pads with motifs for humans and vampires and a poster.

Then it was time to slowly leave SE and some people had to leave earlier like Divine Shadow and Ardeth, Ammon, so they´d catch trains. The rest of us took couple of photos in front of the Square Enix desk and then invited George and Trevor over for a drink. Pub was really just across the street so we all settled in and connected tables together so everybody would fit. We tried to pry out of Trevor some more info about Nosgoth, but alas, even after three beers he wouldn´t let too much on. I finally got the chance to talk to Umah after all this time and it was really great evening knowing her and also thanks to the charming company of Bazielim.

When it got late the rest of us went to the hotel after grabbing some food and stayed for a while in the lobby. Knowing it was the last hours of being together, we stayed up as long as we could that night. I think saying goodbye was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, knowing I won´t see my friends for who knows how long. It was amazing especiallly because most of us met first time in our lives and had so much fun time together talking and reflecting about the series. I am really glad I was chosen to participate in this event as it gave me an amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity to see SE London HQ, meet SE staff and primarily, strengthen the bonds between us LOK fans. It really makes me happy that there are many people who still care about Kain´s legacy...

After going to bed and sleeping for like an hour or two, since had to wake up at 5.30, took a shower, packed everything and left the hotel at six. With the sense of leaving something great behind me, I departed for the tube and got on the flight. We arrived in Vienna 10mins later as we should have been, which didn´t give much time to stand around since my connective flight was only 30mins apart... Running like never before I reached the plane just in time, totally exhausted, since the gate was located out of all things on the other side as we came in... Luckily when I arrived at the airport, I caught the bus just right on time and got home. It took some time to absorb all of what happened and and to sort out all the memories... It´s for granted that such day cannot be ever forgotten.

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Blood Omen 2 is on Steam

Today, the list of Legacy of Kain games has been updated with Blood Omen 2. Priced at 5,99 euros, now you can complete your Steam collection. Steam also hosts pc manuals which you can view online and download in a pdf form: