Nosgoth – humans vs. vampires

The Legacy of Kain saga continues – although not quite in the form many fans had hoped for. While Nosgoth does take place in the Legacy of Kain world, chronicling the bloody, never-ending war between humans and vampires, its gameplay – to the surprise of many fans – will primarily revolve around online multiplayer arena battles with players forming teams and battling each other to claim victory, not entirely unlike in Valve’s classic Team Fortress 2. The developers recently began the first phase of closed alpha testing and also gave us a brand new gameplay trailer titled “War is Upon Us”.

Nosgoth was first announced in September via a gameplay trailer provided by developer Psyonix – a studio that was previously involved in a number of larger projects such as Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War and Mass Effect 3, boasting of a vast amount of experience with online multiplayer gaming. That Nosgoth – at least gameplay-wise – will not follow the classic Legacy of Kain tradition is evident – the more pressing question is whether or not Psyonix will be able to provide a solid and fresh online gaming experience that manages to stand on its own two feet even without the – let’s be honest, somewhat forced – utilization of the Kain lore.

It would be hasty to jump to conclusions just yet – we nonetheless cannot help but wonder what aim there is behind using the Legacy of Kain world and setting if the game itself will ultimately fail to deliver what a great majority of fans have been wishing for – that is, a proper continuation of the saga, possibly through a sequel to the 2003 Legacy of Kain: Defiance. Reasons behind the decision to make use of the Kain world can, of course, be found if we take a glimpse at the now-cancelled Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun, a game that would’ve served as sequel to Defiance, but was later scrapped; its multiplayer component, however, survived and was resurrected as the game we currently know as Nosgoth.

Although the recent trailer revealed little of the more intricate parts of the game’s mechanics, at the time of writing, lucky fans are already being given the chance to try Nosgoth via the currently ongoing alpha testing event. The latest feedback results following players who tested Nosgoth during the aplha phase show fairly positive results, which could be a good sign – although a true Kain sequel is still out of our reach, if Nosgoth ends up being a competent release, its success could – we hope – potentially pave the way for a new, single-player Legacy of Kain campaign following in the original series’ footsteps. A closed beta test for Nosgoth will naturally follow the current alpha testing phase – Psyonix, however, has yet to disclose information regarding when exactly this will happen.

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