Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

on the right indicates Kain's current equipment, health, and magic energy. Blood Omen is a two-dimensional action-adventure game. The player controls the protagonist, Kain, from a top-down perspective. Gameplay is divided between outdoor traversal and dungeon crawls, entailing hack and slash combat, puzzle-solving, and navigating hazards. To advance the story, Kain must locate and defeat the members of the Circle of Nine - who act as boss enemies - and return their tokens to the Pillars of Nosgoth. Humans, animals, and a variety of fantasy creatures inhabit the game world, whom the player can typically elect to kill outright, or alternatively wound in order to feed on their blood. As a vampire, Kain is required to consume the red blood of living creatures to replenish his health meter, which gradually drains over time, and diminishes more quickly if he sustains damage. When he casts spells or shapeshifts, he expends magic energy—this recovers in time, and can be replenished by drinking the blue blood of ghostly enemies. Conversely, undead opponents relinquish harmful black blood, and demons and mutants yield green blood which poisons Kain, causing his health to deplete at a swifter rate. Over the course of the main quest, Kain acquires many items and abilities, which facilitate increasingly nonlinear exploration. As he collects blood vials and rune pyramids, Kain's maximum blood and energy capacity rises. By drinking from blood fountains, he receives strength upgrades, faster magic regeneration, and immunity to weather effects. Weapons include iron and fire-elemental swords, a spiked mace, twin axes, and the Soul Reaver, a two-handed flamberge. Suits of iron, bone, chaos, flesh, and wraith armor feature, and each combination of equipment has advantages and drawbacks. Spells, in the form of magical tarot cards, are used in both strategic and practical contexts, their functions ranging from summoning artificial light to mind control and the evocation of lightning storms. Shapeshifting enables Kain to assume the forms of a bat, allowing for immediate travel to checkpoints; a wolf, with enhanced speed and the capacity to jump; a cloud of mist, which enables him to pass through gates and cross water; or a human, with which he can covertly interact with, or bypass, certain non-player characters. There are 100 secrets present in the game, logged if the player uncovers hidden areas, switches, and dungeons; these encompass spirit forges, at which Kain may donate a significant portion of his blood in exchange for powerful battle artifacts. A day and night cycle passes progressively - at night, Kain's attacks become more potent, and during full moon phases, some sealed doors become accessible. ==Plot==

Setting Blood Omen introduces the land of Nosgoth, a fantasy setting dominated by humans and vampires. The health of the world is inextricably connected to the Pillars of Nosgoth—nine supernatural edifices, each one protected and represented by a human guardian. These sorcerers collectively comprise the Circle of Nine, and if a member dies, a new guardian is called to take their place by the Pillars. Hundreds of years prior to the events of the story, the Circle formed and sponsored the Sarafan, an order of monastic warriors devoted to eradicating the vampire race, and in the game's prologue, the vampire Vorador reacts vengefully by killing six of the guardians and defeating Malek, the Sarafan leader. Though the Sarafan disband, vampires continue to be persecuted. In the intervening years, new guardians have been summoned, Nosgoth's surviving vampires have retreated into hiding, and humanity has separated into two opposing factions: the kingdom of Willendorf, inspired by Arthurian legend, and the Legions of the Nemesis, an all-conquering army determined to bring an end to civilization. When the guardian of balance, Ariel, dies at the hands of a mysterious, malevolent entity, her lover Nupraptor the Mentalist turns his powers against his fellow Circle members, tainting the incumbent guardians with irrevocable madness and leaving the Pillars corrupt. To restore balance to Nosgoth, Kain must overcome the Legions and kill the insane sorcerers; as each Circle member is purged and their token returned, their respective Pillar is cleansed, and when he heals all nine Pillars, replacement guardians can be born. Characters Kain (voiced by Simon Templeman), an ambitious, cynical young nobleman murdered and reluctantly raised as a vampire, is the protagonist of Blood Omen. Conceived as an antihero whose nature reflects the story's moral ambiguity, Kain was partially modeled on the character of William Munny from the 1992 Clint Eastwood film, Unforgiven. Mortanius the Necromancer (Tony Jay), an ancient wizard, resurrects Kain in a Faustian bargain, and serves as his enigmatic benefactor and semi-father figure throughout the game. The reclusive and decadent vampire Vorador (Paul Lukather) acts as a mentor and father figure to Kain, encouraging him to accept vampirism, whereas the specter of the deceased balance guardian, Ariel (Anna Gunn), directs Kain in his quest to restore the land. Story During a journey, the human nobleman Kain is ambushed and killed by a band of assassins. Once he kills his attackers, Mortanius tells him that, while they were the instruments of his death, they were not the ultimate cause. In search of the truth, and a cure to his vampiric curse, Kain travels to the Pillars of Nosgoth. There, Ariel explains that he has to destroy the Circle of Nine before he can realize peace. Kain begins by tracking down and killing Nupraptor, and then confronts Malek, but their duel ends in a stalemate. To defeat Malek, Kain solicits the advice of the Oracle of Nosgoth. The Oracle forewarns him of the Legions of the Nemesis, and instructs him to seek out Vorador, Malek's old adversary. Later, after he slays Azimuth the Planer and recovers a time-streaming device, Ariel informs Kain that he must instead prioritize the war against The Nemesis, whose armies threaten to conquer Willendorf. Kain convinces King Ottmar to rally his troops against the Legions in a final stand, but the battle proves disastrous. Ottmar perishes, the Willendorf forces are overwhelmed, and Kain, cornered, uses the time-streaming device to escape. He emerges 50 years in the past, and kills the younger version of The Nemesis from this era—the beloved King William the Just—to trigger a temporal paradox which expunges the Legions from the timestream. However, when Kain returns to the present day, he discovers that William's murder has sparked a renewed vampire purge. The Oracle of Nosgoth—revealed to be Moebius the Time Streamer, a member of the Circle—leads the genocidal crusade, and, having masterminded Kain's actions from the outset, consummates his trap by executing Vorador. Kain kills Moebius, but is left the last of his kind. At the Pillars, he witnesses Mortanius arguing with Anarcrothe the Alchemist, who reveals that Mortanius is a guardian, and culpable for both Ariel and Kain's deaths. Seduced by The Dark Entity, Mortanius was unwillingly controlled and forced to kill Ariel. To correct the imbalance, he created Kain, a creature potent enough to destroy the Circle. Players can choose whether to heal the world (an ending in which Kain sacrifices his life, ensuring the extinction of the vampires and restoration of Nosgoth) or damn the world, in which case the Pillars collapse, leaving Nosgoth an irredeemable wasteland, with Kain fully embracing his curse and living on as the most powerful entity in the land. ==Development==

delivered his first performance as the character of Kain. Blood Omen originated as The Pillars of Nosgoth, a game proposal drafted circa 1993 by Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack and art director and writer Ken McCulloch. In 1993, while Silicon Knights completed work on Dark Legions, Dyack met Crystal Dynamics producer Lyle Hall at a conference, and they shared their mutual ambition to build "epic" games with bigger budgets and higher expectations than the then-current industry standard. Design work continued, with Amy Hennig at the helm as design manager, for approximately six to eight months before both parties reached agreement on the most suitable video game console to publish for. Hall, who had been "instantly taken" by the project, thought that "it was obvious this game deserved a The Legend of Zelda|[Legend of] Zelda-style take on a vampire action RPG", and assisted Dyack in convincing Crystal Dynamics to choose the newly announced PlayStation over the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer and Sega Saturn. Dyack and Hall believed that Blood Omen could help to evolve the action role-playing genre through strong writing and artistic, cinematic flair—Dyack summarized it as a game which adults would want to play. The developers endorsed the narrative motif, "what is evil? Perhaps it is merely a perspective", and hoped to determine how players would react in "a world where [they] had to kill innocents to survive". McCulloch, who wrote the majority of in-game texts, was urged by marketer colleagues to give characters more accessible names—he described some, such as Mortanius, as "Names from Hell", which were difficult to get past the "marketing censor". Cover art for the historical novel The Pillars of the Earth served as the inspiration behind the Pillars of Nosgoth. The developers undertook a talent search for the game's voice cast, listening to dozens of tapes submitted by Hollywood voice actors. Before the game's voice-over was recorded, Dyack expressed concern that the actors cast would be unable to convey McCulloch's complex dialogue. He later said, however, that their performances "blew him away", commenting that "after five minutes with Simon Templeman [...] we knew that there was no problem". Prior to shipping, Activision and BMG Interactive reached arrangements with Crystal Dynamics to manufacture and distribute the product in various territories. In what they described as "a first in the industry", Silicon Knights added an opening credit to fully clarify that they were responsible for developing the game's concept, story, and content. Activision and Crystal Dynamics published a Microsoft Windows port, developed by Semi Logic Entertainments, in 1997. Work on a Saturn version was also commenced by Silicon Knights after the initial release. Employees at Crystal Dynamics, including Steve Groll, stated that the Saturn version was completed but that they could not find a publisher willing to release it. The Silicon Knights website insisted that this "was simply not true" and that the Saturn version was never finished. ==Reception==

Blood Omen was named the best game showcased at the inaugural E3 fair by DieHard GameFan in 1995. Crystal Dynamics viewed its commercial performance as "immensely successful", and remarkable for the time. 1UP.com's staff lauded the game in their synopsis, saying it offered "the best plot of any PlayStation game to date". They acknowledged its "moody" graphics and sound design, describing its art as "beautifully rendered", and its music as "genius". Electronic Gaming Monthly named Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain Role-Playing Game of the Year, explaining that, "This was a close race with Suikoden, but the dark and violent nature of Kain won. ... The excellent voice work, as well as the foreboding and violent cinemas, produced the perfect mood." ==Sequel==

By the time Blood Omen was released, Crystal Dynamics had already secured a deal with Activision to publish a sequel. Blood Omen did receive a sequel, but its production was impeded by a litigious battle between the game's stakeholders and developer. In an interview conducted shortly after the PlayStation release, Dyack contemplated the possibility of creating a prequel centered around the character of Vorador - referring to it as part of the "Blood Omen series" - but mentioned that it was "extremely unlikely" that Silicon Knights would work with Crystal Dynamics again. The dispute was settled in private, with Crystal Dynamics retaining the rights to the game, and permission to create derivative work using its characters, provided they credit Silicon Knights as the developer of Blood Omen in their sequel. Later, it publicly emerged that Soul Reaver had never been a Silicon Knights concept. It originated as Shifter - an unrelated project inspired by Biblical mythology, devised by Crystal Dynamics' Amy Hennig and Seth Carus (both of whom had worked as designers on Blood Omen) - whose team, initially reluctantly, reworked it into a Blood Omen sequel at the request of company management. Successive titles in what was now the Legacy of Kain series were produced by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos, whereas Silicon Knights walked away from the franchise to begin work on Too Human, and later ''Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem''. In 2012, NeoGAF member Mama Robotnik highlighted public records of the 1997 court case. During the proceedings, Silicon Knights stated that they had ceded the Blood Omen intellectual property to Crystal Dynamics under "financial duress". Among other assertions, they claimed that Crystal Dynamics had breached an agreement in late 1996 by selling certain publishing rights to the game—and any potential sequels—to Activision for $2,000,000. He said that "many people ask us if we like the direction they have gone in but it is so alien to what we created it is pointless to answer now. We understand that some people love the Soul Reaver series and we think that is great. However, it is not what we would ever have done". which is a free-to-play cooperative action role-playing video game. ==Notes==