Over the last ten years or so, we’ve seen endless articles (including quite a few here at Cultured Vultures) on “franchises that we’d love to see return.” Near the top of many of those lists sits Legacy of Kain: one of the most loved 90s gaming franchises and one that fans have been clamouring for a follow-up. Recent remasters have given us hope that a new Kain game would be released, and finally, in the year of our Lord 2026, we have Legacy of Kain: Ascendance.
Sadly for us, this isn’t the grand return we had hoped for.
Initially, I was intrigued by Ascendance’s pixel art style graphics and thought it could be a good fit for the franchise. However, while it is certainly a throwback-inspired entry into the series, it does so without evolving a genre that’s been more or less mastered over the last 30 years. In fact, feels very much like a 90s game, but unfortunately also inherits many of that era’s flaws.
The gameplay loop is simple: walk right, attack, repeat. There is very, very little depth and it gets repetitive fast. It’s an extremely basic 2D side-scroller but does not innovate upon the genre. It features basic levels with generic platforming action, though there are a few tricky sections which are more frustrating than challenging.
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance feels very linear: move to the right for the most part and hack at whatever you find. You may need to use your abilities to pass over a large jump, or through a gate, and even sometimes you get to move to the left (albeit briefly). There is some heavy hazard spam at times and, with projectile attacks and enemies coming from all directions, the fact you can only attack forward quickly becomes frustrating. The levels do not feel interesting and there are not many creative ideas at play; levels feel rather repetitive.
There are various types of enemies but little variety within them. Flying enemies that vary in form but all act the same. Humanoid enemies take the form of various close-quarters and ranged enemies. But when triggered, enemies react in weird ways: they fall off ledges and jump around randomly. In terms of combat, you can slash, and that is it. You can also parry, which shows intent to make the combat more engaging. However, it’s just as easy to randomly hack at opponents and jump around to avoid being hit. You can also flap your wings to fly briefly by tapping the jump button – yes, just like Flappy Bird. This mechanic quickly becomes more frustrating than fun.
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance’s graphics do look nice at first glance. But for my money, they feel a little too low in detail for modern pixel art. I’m aware that low-detail retro art is a design choice; you only need to look at the Axiom Verge series. But those graphics are contextualised by Axiom Verge’s genre, a metroidvania game – which became more and more popular in the 8-bit era, something reflected in the graphical style. It’s low detail, but it’s filled with colour and detail.
There’s no such context with Ascendance, but there doesn’t really need to be. The issue is that while the game aims for a retro pixel-art style, the lack of detail feels less like a deliberate choice and more like a limitation of budget or direction. The cutscene characters do look nice, however, as well as some nice-looking 3D PS1-style graphics for other cutscenes (though it should be noted that they are both largely not animated). Cutscenes also have pixel art pictures which tell the core story and are generally quite nice.
Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is the retelling of an existing graphic novel called Dead Shall Rise. It’s not something I know much about, but I found it a little uninteresting. There are some long sections of chatting about the bland story, intermixed with the dull levels. There was also a five-minute-long unskippable cutscene that I had to endure not once, but twice due to quitting out mid-level. I assume this will be patched – please, let it be patched.
There’s some good “Legacy of Kain voicework” here. Fans of the series will probably get what I mean: long, laboured, almost Shakespearean conversations filled with lore and theatrical delivery. Some of the original cast do return, with Simon Templeman as Kain and Michael Bell returning as Raziel. I hate to admit it, but Bell is, of course, 30 years older, and he sounds it. He’s meant to be playing an earlier version of the character at times but sounds a lot older. This feels like a rare case where recasting may have been the better choice. They’re fitting to Legacy of Kain, but perhaps feel a little dated in 2026.
There are a few other issues at play here: the PC version has very limited settings as well as no keybinding options. There’s the occasional issue of taking damage while in an animation, or sometimes a lock-on ability will see you follow an enemy who has randomly decided to fall off a ledge. There’s a general lack of polish on display.
I cannot deny that I was able to play Ascendance for a while and lost track of time, so it can’t all be bad. It’s very, very simplistic, but also a little mindless, so it’s an easy game to pick up and play for a while, despite its flaws. If you are a Legacy of Kain fan, and are wanting something simple and inoffensive to put your time into then this could be for you, but for everyone else there are countless better options out there.
While it’s easy to play, it attempts to reframe the franchise as a 1990s-style 2D throwback platformer, but totally fails to capture what made the franchise so popular in the first place. The shallow, repetitive gameplay, weak story, and poor AI leave it feeling outdated — even by 90s standards.
A Steam key was provided by PR for the purposes of this review
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