Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is a bold attempt to exhume a series that has spent far too long entombed beneath the weight of its own legacy. It knows the significance of its name — almost reveres it — but that reverence becomes a burden it can’t quite shoulder.
I’ve adored the Legacy of Kain series since the before‑times, when Soul Reaver first sank its claws into me. It was one of the first “grown‑up” games I ever finished — not just a colourful distraction for kids, but a world dripping with atmosphere, lore, and a sense of consequence. So, when Legacy of Kain: Ascendance arrived, I was ready. I’m old enough to remember when a 2D side‑scroller was the pinnacle of graphical wizardry, so pairing that format with a series I love — and the return of voice actors whose lines still whisper through the darker corners of my memory — felt like a recipe for something special.
A lot can go wrong with a recipe, though. And here, a lot does.
At the centre of Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is its story. Nosgoth is once again fractured, fate and free will are once again circling each other like starving wolves, and corruption is once again cyclical. So far, so familiar.
You begin as Elaleth, a former human whose design and narrative beats echo Raziel so loudly it’s almost surprising she doesn’t sprout tattered wings on the spot, oh wait, first level, gains wings. Check. She’s clearly meant to be the emotional anchor— the character new players can latch onto. Raziel himself appears in both pre‑and post‑vampiric forms, and of course Kain looms over everything, voiced by one of the greatest performers gaming has ever had, at least I think so.
But here’s the problem: the story of Legacy of Kain: Ascendance leans so heavily on pre‑existing lore that Elaleth’s intended role as an entry point collapses instantly. If you don’t already know why these characters matter, the game makes no effort to help you care. It simply assumes you do. Who is this Janos Audron character, why should I care? Oh he seems important! No matter, he’s gone now.
Combat, meanwhile, is a slog. A primary attack, a secondary attack, a block, and the creeping realisation that you’ll be playing exactly the same way five hours in as you did five minutes in. Unlocks exist, technically, but they don’t meaningfully change anything.
Level design doesn’t fare any better. Backgrounds are sparse, assets repeat with the enthusiasm of a copy‑paste intern on a Friday afternoon, and the world — a world that should drip with gothic grandeur — feels lifeless. One level has Elaleth fighting outside in pitch darkness. She’s a vampire. Why is it dark? Am I Elaleth, or am I some detached puppeteer watching a character who can’t see her own feet? Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is drab enough, now you give me a section where everything is literally just black. Well done game, you have won me over…
The voice acting is a particular heartbreak. Hearing Simon Templeton and Michael Bell again should have been a triumph, but their delivery sounds like they were locked in a booth with nothing but a script and a vague promise of context. No art, no animation, no emotional cues — just lines read into the void. When a guard sees Elaleth glide for the first time and exclaims, “What! They can fly now?!” a small part of my soul quietly curled up and expired, I don’t mourn its loss.
Speaking of gliding: the mechanic is dreadful. A sort of Flappy Bird‑esque flap‑and‑pray system, complete with insta‑kill sections where you can’t see where you’re going. Hope becomes a core gameplay feature. So do bottomless pits that either progress the level or kill you instantly, with no visual distinction between the two.
My favourite moment — and by favourite, I mean the one that broke me — came from a guard whose hand Elaleth had just torn off. “Take my right hand if you will, creature… I will learn to fight with my left!” he declares, before dying. It was amusing the first time. By the twenty‑third repetition (oh yes, I counted, and that was only AFTER I noticed it had already repeated a few times), I began to suspect the line had unionised and refused to share screen time with any others. I even restarted the console and level to see if it was a glitch. Nope. Design.
Doménico Cieri Estrada once said, “Bring the past only if you are going to build from it.” Ascendance does not build. It rummages through the past like someone rifling through a charity shop bin, hoping to find something valuable without paying the cost of craftsmanship. In a world where Hades exists — polished, purposeful, precise — someone clearly said, “I want that, but cheaper, and by next Tuesday.”
So when you boot up Legacy of Kain: Ascendance, with its retconned story, its comic‑book‑side‑character‑turned‑protagonist, its dull combat, uninspired levels, and flat voice acting (even from actors I adore), the whole thing radiates a powerful “we have Hades at home” energy. If Legacy of Kain: Ascendance were physical media, it would be shivering alone in the bargain bin before the week was out.
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is available now for PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox and Windows PCs.
