Some of my best memories playing games I wasn’t supposed to play as a child is the Legacy of Kain series. I was enthralled by the deep mythology that my then-early-adolescent brain called “Vampire Shakespeare,” and was equal parts on the edge of my seat to see what happened next and listening for a potential parent/guardian to spoil my Nosgoth vacation. The blend of outside-the-box puzzle solving, wicked action sequences, truly compelling characters, and a gothic setting made the series a true Legacy that evolved with each entry.
After 23 long years of dormancy, an extra layer has been added to the series as a “canon” entry in Legacy of Kain: Ascendance and confirmed by Crystal Dynamics. What Legacy of Kain: Ascendance brings to the table is a new POV retelling of the events of Soul Reaver 1 & 2, making the never-before-mentioned sister of Raziel, Elaleth, a central figure in the narrative. Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is a long-awaited return to Nosgoth in a new presentation with solid production quality, and it’s the first original installment in the series since 2003. But the return to Nosgoth is marred with confusing development choices, frustrating level design, and an overall feeling of disappointment after the credits roll.
The series has shifted back to a retro 2D platforming presentation (from its 3D style in nearly every other entry) and a new face in charge. Introduced in the 2025 graphic novel, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver – The Dead Shall Rise, Elaleth serves yet another protagonist the player jumps to and from in Ascendance and provides an interesting gameplay variation as a vampire with wings. Legacy of Kain: Ascendance embodies the best (and the very worst) of NES and SNES platforming gameplay.
“Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is a long-awaited return to Nosgoth in a new presentation with solid production quality”
In Legacy of Kain: Ascendance, fans will retread the Nosgoth storyline during various key moments in the mythos, and you will have to embody three characters: Elaleth, Raziel, and Kain himself. Crystal Dynamics attempts to make gameplay feel fresh by using multiple protagonists, but each plays fundamentally the same. In an earlier stage, players will even need to take control of the human Inquisitor Raziel, and he even walks with the swagger of a not-so-heroic Belmont. With pixel art style animations, each character is completely fleshed out and retains their own personality, down to Kain’s iconic feeding with Telekenesis.
Ascendance gameplay boils down to one combat swing (for each character), jumping, ducking, and using special abilities to platform. For fans, this is the first time in the mythos that they can witness/play as Raziel at full power with his wings intact, and it is a treat to see his character’s pride overcome his rational thought. The series’ iconic need to feed returns, also, with the extra added anxiety of your HP decreasing over time and killing/healing being two sides of the same coin.
Crystal Dynamics rolled out the red carpet for Nosgoth Historians, hiding collectibles in the walls of every stage, giving heavy context to the world history, very much like Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered did on the title screen. For those in search of a lore refresher, players will have to play through the entire 12 stages (and roughly four hours) of Ascendance’s story while finding these collectibles.
It’s a neat trick, giving fans a reason to hunt down collectibles especially when the reward is the lore of the realm, but it would’ve had a bigger payoff (especially if the scrolls contained some of the graphic novel’s story beats) if the entire compendium could refresh the player before they play through a narrative that assumes you’ve been here before.
First-timers should be warned: Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is not a safe onboarding ramp into the series. While Ascendance’s narrative does explain things, it takes big liberties, assuming the player has at least looked at a Nosgoth brochure before. Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered and Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered serve as far better entry points to the series, and Ascendance treats you like you should know this stuff.
You begin the game as Elaleth, and she has wings very similar to Janos Audron’s. Her focus in Ascendance is getting revenge on her brother, Raziel, for murdering her turned-betrothed Matthias (and chopping off her right hand). Another new character, Ky’set’syk, leads her through the annals of time to exact this revenge. All the while, she hopes there’s a way to return Matthias to the world. During this narrative, it turns out Elaleth put many of the moving pieces in the entire overarching series into place.
This single decision retcons much of the Nosgoth lore and character development fans have experienced in the previous releases, and it casts a dark shadow on Ascendance as a game in the series. In other Legacy of Kain releases, Kain and Raziel break free of fate, and only by overcoming their differences do they outwit even an Elder God and bring hope to the land of Nosgoth.
With Crystal Dynamics’ promise of Ascendance being canon to the story, these decisions are cut by force, making yet another entity holding the strings (this time, the Hylden sorcerer Ky’set’syk) lead our deeply flawed heroes around instead of letting the weight of their decisions be theirs. Legacy of Kain is a series beloved by fans, and the negative reception of the graphic novel showed the fans were less than pleased with these additions on paper.
Impressively, Ascendance brings back nearly the entire cast of the series, including Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn as former scion of Balance, Ariel. As a matter of fact, the entire sound design is stellar throughout Ascendance, with sound effects and a soundtrack that storms through your body with vampiric rage. Prisoners let out convincing wails when they’re fed upon, and parrying blows serves a satisfying impact when performed right.
“Legacy of Kain: Ascendance does one thing with finesse: it brings back these beloved characters as if they never left.”
Both iconic voices, Simon Templemann and Michael Bell, have also returned as the series mainstays, Kain and Raziel, respectively. Bell’s performance is significant considering he’s now 87 and still chilling audiences as a tormented Raziel. Templemann steals every scene he’s in; my favourite is a scene where Ariel and Kain lecture Elaleth at the Circle of the Nine. Not only does this finally give Legacy of Kain fans an in-game quiz to throw their knowledge at, but if you make any mistakes, Kain lashes into you with verbal vitriol designed to make you feel weak. Legacy of Kain: Ascendance does one thing with finesse: it brings back these beloved characters as if they never left.
Aside from embracing the series and restoring Nosgoth’s identity with solid production values, Ascendance has a lot of problems. Level balance feels like two different teams sewed them together. When playing as the winged and mobile Elaleth, you can dive attack enemies and advance quickly with many checkpoints guiding you. As human Raziel, however, you don’t feel so much underpowered as you feel like the level took the fun away. This is a problem that persists throughout Ascendance.
For a game to rely on platforming and hidden secrets, Legacy of Kain: Ascendance punishes the explorer with inconsistent checkpoints and the inability to ‘look down’ or see what’s next. These design flaws became apparent on the Game Boy when ports felt unfair due to screen size, and they remain here in 2026. Platforming titles like Hollow Knight: Silksong have implemented camera movement for precise platforming, and the SNES Super Castlevania IV allows you to look up and down.
Jumping in Ascendance also feels stiff, and like Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered, often your character will miss ledges that are usually grabbable by every other metric. There are no mid-chapter checkpoints either. Each stage is broken up (confusingly) into stages that are unannounced, and if you drop from the game on stage II of the fourth chapter, you must start the chapter from the beginning.
To add more frustration, if you perish against a boss that had a long cutscene, you will need to watch the entire cutscene again; they’re unskippable. Boss fights are also pretty abysmal (outside of one that feels like a cool other side POV) and feel easier said than done. Even when facing the all-powerful Janos Audron as a human, you brutally outclass him (while this makes sense in the lore, it serves as a poor boss fight), although he flies around the stage.
The best stage in Ascendance harkens back to the PlayStation’s graphical style in cutscenes and puts players in control of Kain as he raids the Sarafan crypt of Raziel. These moments show flashes of what Ascendance could have been: a competent platformer steeped in the mythos of Nosgoth. Kain feels good to play, bat transformations break up the stiff platforming jumps (and awful flight controls) that plague the rest of the title, and misting through gates feels like you’re the Elder vampire of legend.
Another great stage gives the floor to Templemann and Gunn at the Circle of the Nine, providing context for the player while serenading them in well-acted roles. These stages do more harm than good, though, as it reminds me of how long the franchise has stagnated, and how much better Legacy of Kain: Ascendance could have been.
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is a flawed return to Nosgoth. I see some incredible value here as a fan of the series, with acting returns for the entire cast and reminders everywhere of why the series has maintained such a Legacy for all this time. Ascendance has moments where the gameplay feels awesome. But this entry is settling for the bare minimum. Ascendance has many design issues the player must endure, including an unsatisfying cliffhanger ending. Legacy of Kain: Ascendance unfortunately continues this legacy as the worst entry in the series, but hopefully it has shown enough promise to warrant a proper conclusion.
