A 30 minute video has been released of the cancelled Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun game that was originally scheduled to release on Xbox 360 and PS3, but managed to get canned instead. You get to see how the graphics look as well as some of the gameplay in the video below, courtesy of Mama Robotnik Neogaf.
There's a very detailed forum post over on NeoGaf covering some of the more detailed aspects of the game's development.
Supposedly the title was canned as far back as 2012. Square Enix felt as if the game wouldn't meet sales projections. At that time they were kind of bleeding money based on massive-budget projects like Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Final Fantasy XIV (before it was known as A Realm Reborn). Games like Sleeping Dogs (and later Tomb Raider) were nearly labeled as failures because they had moderate, slow-burn sales. Square was looking for something that would bring in massive turnarounds right out of the gate and they didn't think that it would be Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun.
Parts of the game still managed to live on from Climax Studios' work, including the multiplayer-only game Nosgoth, which is now being developed by Psyonix and currently has a spot on Steam's Early Access platform.
As for Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun, the game carries a lot of similarities to past games, including the ability to shift between realms like the original Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. By the way, the special effects between the realm shifts look really, really cool.
Players assume the role of Asher, as he tries to figure out why another soul-eating vampire was sent to kill him. Well, technically the vampire did kill Asher but when he absorbed Asher's soul, the vampire ended up having his body taken over by Asher.
The gameplay consists of a lot of platforming and adventuring around. It's definitely mirrored more after the later Legacy of Kain titles as opposed to the original, isometric RPG.
The environments and some of the stage designs also lend themselves toward the NeoGaf thread's estimation that the game was going to be a PS4 launch title. Just the way the some of the effects work and the way some of the graphics are utilized, I could definitely see that being a possibility.
The fighting and combat system is basically identical to Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham games. The only problem is that the fighting is kind of uninspired and generic. If the game did manage to get released I would imagine most reviews would complain about the combat becoming samey rather quickly. Very much like the Soul Reaver games, Asher collects collects souls to get stronger and upgrade his abilities. A lot of his “morph” moves remind me of Activision's Prototype games.
While the game didn't seem like a blockbuster that would sell above five million copies, it did seem like the sort of niche title that would capture the attention of a few million eager souls.
