Nosgoth went offline on May 31, 2016.
This announcement caught all fans by surprise.
It was extremely sudden, not to mention unnecessary.
There were still many pending things to do, many ways the game could still improve...
...and it wasn't even out of BETA yet.
If you're one of the people who knew and liked Nosgoth,
you, like me, must be very upset with all this.
But if you didn't know about it, here's a quick recap:
-WHAT WAS NOSGOTH?- Nosgoth was a multiplayer, free-to-play online game, and was part of the Legacy of Kain franchise,
an old Crystal Dynamics series that depicts a complex story led by Kain,
a noble aristocrat that is transformed into a vampire, and afterwards becomes the emperor of the Land of Nosgoth.
Throughout this story, we also follow Raziel, Kain's lieutenant and right-hand at his empire's peak.
After being executed as a "traitor", for evolving faster than his master,
Raziel mysteriously comes back from the dead as a wraith, seeking revenge from Kain.
Nosgoth, the game, takes place during Soul Reaver, between Raziel's execution and his return as a wraith,
and depicts a time period where Kain has mysteriously vanished.
With the power vacuum created by Kain's absence,
Raziel's brothers, Kain's lieutenants, start fighting each other for the right to the throne.
This civil war reaches a truce when the vampires are surprised by the rebellion of their human slaves,
who took advantage of the ensued chaos to try and topple the empire for good.
-GAMEPLAY- Nosgoth was an asymmetric PvP. A symmetric PvP is when players on each team have access to the same classes, abilities, equipments and mechanics.
-Example of symmetric (or semi-symmetric) PvP- Nosgoth was an asymmetric PvP. A symmetric PvP is when players on each team have access to the same classes, abilities, equipments and mechanics.
Unlike that, in Nosgoth, both of the available teams, humans and vampires, had access to completely different classes from each other, -Asymmetric PvP-
with their own exclusive equipment, and even different mechanics. -Asymmetric PvP-
For instance: Only the humans could sprint, but only the vampires could crawl up walls. -Asymmetric PvP-
Each match was composed of two rounds:
In the first one, one team would play as the humans, and the other as the vampires,
and in the second one the roles were reversed: whoever played as a vampire before now plays as a human, and vice-versa.
At the end of the match, the scores of both rounds were added up, and the team with the higher score won.
This asymmetry was Nosgoth's iconic differential,
with vampires using superhuman strength in melee combat,
and humans compensating their weaknesses with superior equipment, such as bombs and long-ranged weapons.
-HISTORY OF NOSGOTH- Nosgoth was developed by Psyonix, most known for Rocket League,
and started life as a "multiplayer mode" for the game Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun.
While Dead Sun was cancelled in 2012, its "multiplayer mode" continued develpment as a separate game,
being announced in June 2013 as a new game, unattached from its predecessor.
On January 21, 2015, Nosgoth entered Open Beta, and its full official release was scheduled for May 2016...
...but that month, instead of being released, the game was cancelled.
The cancelling was announced on April 8, and carried out on the following month, on May 31, 2016.
When Nosgoth was initially revealed, the series' existing fans received it negatively,
due to its differences when compared to the previous games in the series:
A multiplayer game in a series dominated by single-player games, with a strong narrative, and that hasn't seen a new game in over 10 years.
It's no surprise that the old fans would be unhappy with this,
but focusing so intensely on what Nosgoth wasn't, blinded them to what the game had to offer.
-MY EXPERIENCE- When I saw Nosgoth's first announcement, it immediately caught my attention due to the innovative gameplay it was bringing to the genre,
and having played all of the Legacy of Kain games, I was wonderstruck by the game's art.
They managed to recreate the violent, dark atmosphere of the old games very well,
with the character design, environment, and even the gameplay itself. I could barely wait to play it.
Having played many PvP games, Nosgoth was one of the games that most impressed me with its gameplay and the individuality that each team and classes possessed.
Vampires could fly, leap long distances, crawl up walls, attack with fast and lethal melee strikes, and heal with the blood of their dead enemies,
which encouraged aggression in your strategies and also created a certain need to press on the offensive.
On the other hand, the humans healed using Supply Stations, positioned in specific, fixed points on the map,
which encouraged a more positioning-focused strategy and a defense-oriented gameplay,
and this was reinforced with long-ranged weapons, such as bows, crossbows, pistols,
along with explosives and area of effect abilities to stun, temporarily blind, or otherwise slowing them down, creating better defense conditions.
In Nosgoth, it was necessary for the teams to coordinate their attacks, work together for a better result.
A vampire attacking by himself or a human wandering away from the group, both were basically suicide.
It wasn't like some other games where, even though there is a "team", it's entirely possible to attack all by yourself, or even decide a match.
In Nosgoth, you were only stronger together. This, to me, was one of the best qualities of the game.
I invested 400 hours in Nosgoth. I played, trained, got salty over bad teams like in any PvP game.
There's always gotta be one, doesn't it?
But I was never not having fun, it was one of the first PvP games that really got me excited to improve and play better and better.
-CANCELLING- Unfortunately, all of that was too good to last. I couldn't even believe it when I saw the cancelling announcement.
Lots of players even thought it was a late April Fools joke.
They had just released a new class, a new map, and a daily reward system;
and a few days later the game was cancelled, just like that.
That moment was confusing, frustrating, but most of all sad.
In the cancelling announcement, Psyonix commented that the reason was basically for a "lack of players",
even though the bad decisions they themselves made during development is what's to blame for said "lack" of players.
These bad decisions absolutely stunted the game's growth.
They neglected, almost completely, to do any marketing for the game,
took way too long to release new content and fix critical bugs,
they added a Launcher that just made everything worse instead of improving anything...
But worst of all was rashly investing in their own in-game championship,
The Nosgoth Leagues, with money prizes, without even having the appropriately polished matchmaking system
that a championship such as this would require, in order to balance the levels of the players in the match.
That was over U$60,000.00 thrown away for nothing!
All of this could have been avoided if only they had put their priorities in order:
Released all of the planned classes; particularly the vampire ones, since they were already running behind.
Implemented more gamemodes, including some PvE mode to practice with bots, something the game sorely needed.
Selling new cosmetic items on the store upfront, not through random-content chests.
And do more publicity for the game, so that people would actually know about it!
And only after all that, after the game was fixed and presentable to a larger public, out of Beta,
that's when they should have started investing on things like championships and e-sports, not before.
It's a shame all this happened. The game had plenty of potential to grow a lot,
just like other Free-to-Play games, whose developers actually listen to their players' feedback.
But Psyonix didn't listen.
I had many plans for Nosgoth tutorials and gameplay videos, and it really sucks that I can't do that anymore.
Nosgoth was very good while it lasted, and it's really sad to see it end this way.
It is truly gonna be missed. I hope someday, a game shows up that has gameplay similar to it.
-HOPE- Like Ingrid said before, a lot of Legacy of Kain's old fans didn't take kindly to Nosgoth.
I was one of them.
After years waiting for the new installment for this, one of my favorite series,
my reaction to the announcement of a multiplayer game can only be described as "disappointment".
Learning that Nosgoth came from Dead Sun,
which I already deeply disliked for the way it tried to completely deprave the series without any remorse,
really didn't help the situation.
However, astime went on, Nosgoth started revealing its hand.
Psyonix displayed an unexpected amount of dedication to the series' story,
and made a big effort for their game to fit in the pre-established lore.
They cared.
They weren't like their predecessors, who despised Legacy of Kain,
and wanted to change everything in the series to what they believed it should be.
No, Psyonix was doing its best to honor Legacy of Kain,
to treasure what came before, and to create something worthy of this legacy.
This reached its pinnacle when Psyonix hired Daniel Cabuco,
the original artist for Soul Reaver, to create the Evolved Skins,
cosmetic items for the vampire classes that brought them closer to their Soul Reaver equivalents.
All of this effort to create a product that respected the franchise's past showed me that Nosgoth deserved a chance, that it deserved credit.
That, of course, was long before the multiple shots Psyonix applied to their own foot, which resulted in the game being cancelled.
Ironically, despite the turbulent announcement, and the sudden and nonsensical cancelling of the game...
...I think I can say that what Nosgoth means to me is hope.
Hope that one of my favorite series can still, even after 15 years of nothing, come back.
Hope that one of the best stories I've ever seen in games can still have the conclusion that it deserves.
This is the game that brought Daniel Cabuco back to the Legacy of Kain, revealed new info about the series' world, and brought new fans to the series,
not to mention putting Legacy of Kain back not only in the minds of the old fans,
but the industry as a whole.
And I refuse to believe that NO ONE on Square Enix is seeing this.
It's time to revive this series, and Nosgoth gave me this hope that this is still something that can happen.
If you have any similar stories about a game like this,
that meant something to you and was cancelled, or is otherwise forgotten or abandoned,
tell us in the comments below.
Let's reminisce a little bit, about these games that were part of our lives.
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