Kain (Legacy of Kain) - Concept and Creation

Concept and Creation

Kain is very much the focus of the series, though. If you remove the melodrama and just look at the human elements of his character, you can see that he's flawed. Depending on how you look at things you could call him a tragic hero or an anti-hero. In my opinion, characters painted as 'true villains' just aren't interesting. They're too two-dimensional; no one is ever really so uncomplicated. Everyone always has their motives for what they're doing - everybody believes they're doing the right thing within their belief system. Kain is basically screwed by his own character flaws - which is more interesting than the idealized hero figure.

Kain's character was originally conceived circa 1993 by Silicon Knights' president, Denis Dyack, as the protagonist of The Pillars of Nosgoth, an initial video game concept for what would become 1996's Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. He was modeled in part on William Munny, the protagonist of Clint Eastwood's 1992 Western film, Unforgiven. The developers set out to craft an antihero to suit "a game where the player is put in the position where everyone believes you are evil", feeling that the industry required a story addressing issues of moral ambiguity and wondering how players would react when "everyone in the world was your enemy (including yourself) where you had to kill innocents to survive you are the ultimate pawn". Other influences which helped to define Kain's character arc included The Wheel of Time, Necroscope, and cover art from The Pillars of the Earth. In comparison to Count Dracula, Dyack commented in an interview that he believed Kain would "kick his ass" in a fight. He and writer Ken McCulloch considered Simon Templeman's voiceover for the character superlative, despite initial apprehensions that the actors they had hired might not be able to convey the game's complicated dialogue.

After a legal dispute with Silicon Knights, Blood Omen publisher Crystal Dynamics obtained the rights to the Legacy of Kain intellectual property, with Amy Hennig directing Kain's characterization for the sequel, 1999's Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. In this game, which built upon the Blood Omen ending in which he damns the world, Kain adopted the role of antagonist, with new character Raziel serving as the lead. Hennig justified this choice, believing that it would prove interesting to see what his decision had engendered after a few millennia. She emphasized, though, that she did not consider him a monster or mustache-twirling villain, remarking that "in many ways, he's a more complex and sympathetic character than Raziel himself". Sources which helped to formulate his role in the plot ranged from Biblical lore to Eastern myth and mysticism.

In interviews preceding the release of 2001's Soul Reaver 2, Hennig said that Crystal Dynamics had a huge investment in Kain as a character. His portrayal in this game extrapolated further from Blood Omen's story, and was influenced by Joseph Campbell's ideals. No longer acting as a pure villain, Kain was intended to function as a "steadfast character", coming to the story from a position of knowledge in contrast to Raziel's relative ignorance. Hennig expressed that, by Soul Reaver 2, her personal perception of Kain's character had changed over the years, and that she now considered him a somewhat more attractive and interesting individual than Raziel due to his complexity. She dubbed him a tragic hero, "screwed by his own character flaws", and argued that this hamartia added to his depth. Since joining Naughty Dog, when asked whether Raziel or Kain is closest to her heart, Hennig has said that while Raziel is a sympathetic protagonist, she probably prefers Kain as a character.

For 2002's Blood Omen 2, developed by a different team within Crystal Dynamics, Kain returned as the playable protagonist. The development staff chose to focus on his rise to power as a younger vampire, combining aspects of his Blood Omen and Soul Reaver incarnations. He was marketed as a more powerful and ruthless character than traditional video game heroes, with lead designer Mike Ellis inviting comparison to Final Fantasy VI's Kefka Palazzo and Revolver Ocelot of the Metal Gear series. Design issues, raised by the wealth of abilities and equipment he accumulated in Blood Omen, prompted the team to add to his backstory and convincingly deprive him of these powers. Producer Sam Newman described him as "a very unique character" who "doesn't fit to the generic character molds you find in many other games, books and movies not good, he's not necessarily evil -- Kain does as Kain believes".

2003's Legacy of Kain: Defiance returned to the aged, elder Kain from Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2, now controllable alongside Raziel. The prospect of making this incarnation of Kain playable left the development team "very excited", and was agreed upon very early in pre-production. Recognizing that he is "the most important character in the series", designer Kyle Mannerberg named several parallels and influences concerning his development up to that point, citing Neo and John Murdoch (the protagonists of The Matrix and Dark City respectively), the archetypal Fisher King of Arthurian legend, the story of Oedipus, and Gnostic myth as inspirations (with both latter sources being reaffirmed as strong influences by Hennig in a later interview). The spells he obtains over the course of his levels were intended to pay homage to the original Blood Omen.