The Worst Game Of 2026 Is A Retro Revival

Hey everyone, welcome back to this week's Remastered, which is about Legacy of Kain: Ascendance. Before we get into it, there are two brief notes I'd like to share:

1. I will be on vacation next week, so there will not be a Remastered newsletter on April 9. Expect the newsletter to return on April 16.
2. Last weekend, I began a new freelance role as Polygon's Weekend News Editor. Keep an eye out for my stories there every Saturday and Sunday going forward. It should not impact the publication of this newsletter after the brief hiatus next week.

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Legacy Of Kain: Ascendance Shows How Not To Bring A Retro Franchise Back

The announcement and release of Legacy of Kain: Ascendance feels like it should've been an April Fools' Day joke. Sometimes, game developers like to release short but complete games that they wouldn't normally publish during the week of April Fools, like The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. Some are even spoof retro throwbacks, like PlatinumGames' 8-Bit Bayonetta. These games usually aren't very good, but are charming jokes that have their day in the spotlight and then go away.

Part of me wishes Legacy of Kain: Ascendance were such a game, because then I could be much more lenient and less confused by what it's trying to do. Instead, I'm left baffled by the worst game I've played this year, a game that misunderstands what it means to be retro-inspired, and an insult to Legacy of Kain fans who have waited so long for a new game.

I don't even have that much of a history with Legacy of Kain games, and I came away disappointed by what I played. Legacy of Kain: Ascendance shows everything that can go wrong when a company tries to bring a franchise back but doesn't know what made it special in the first place.

The Legacy of Kain franchise was one of the earliest action-adventure game series to truly embrace narrative and storytelling earnestly. It made the careers of famed game developers like Amy Hennig and Denis Dyack. Because several Legacy of Kain-related projects were canceled and Crystal Dynamics primarily focuses on Tomb Raider, the series laid mostly dormant following 2003's Legacy of Kain: Defiance and became a cult classic. That has only changed a bit in recent years, as both the original and remasters of these games have been released on modern platforms.

Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is the first new game in the series in 23 years. That fact will help you better understand the weight placed upon this game's shoulders, which it can not bear at all. From storytelling to aesthetics to gameplay, there were a lot of beloved elements from the original games for Ascendance to be inspired by. On all three fronts, it makes incorrect choices.

This retro revival is fundamentally flawed on a game genre level. Legacy of Kain games were historically either top-down or 3D action-adventure games, think the original The Legend of Zelda for the first game in the series and Ocarina of Time for the 3D games. That's why the developer's choice ot make Ascendance a 2D platformer makes little sense. The best spiritual successors or retro revivals work because they understand why people liked whatever they're based on. It feels like Ascendance's developers never got the memo on what Legacy of Kain is.

It's also just not a very good 2D platformer. This isn't an expansive Metroidvania like God of War: Sons of Sparta, but a level-based platformer with a lack of combat variety, repetitive level design, and clunky platforming. There are few attack and movement options, and you'll have seen almost every enemy and obstacle the game is going to throw at you just a couple of levels in. Boss fights feel disconnected from the levels they take place within, and levels don't have a cohesive identity or memorable setpieces.

Ascendance also fails on the storytelling front. Without bogging you down in lore details, Legacy of Kain is a franchise full of vampires, resurrections, and time travel. This game mostly follows Elaleth, the sister of an important Legacy of Kain character named Raziel, pinning her as the person who orchestrated many of the series' most important events.

Prequels can satisfactorily fill in important gaps to a complex story, but Ascendance trivializes previous games in the series instead. What's meant to be fan service simply makes me dislike how this game is impacting the franchise's lore more. A quick look at Legacy of Kain's Reddit page shows that I'm not the only one not happy.

Finally, Ascendance can't even get its retro aesthetics quite right. Its pixel art is not very good, it randomly transitions into a low-poly 3D aesethic for a couple of cutscenes, and even has full-on animated cutscenes at the end of the adventure. Any novelty of looking at pixel art versions of these characters goes away after a moment, and I'm just left with a soulless retro throwback that can't even settle on one art style.

All of these issues give off the vibe that Ascendance was cobbled together at the last minute rather than intentionally developed as the grand return of a long-dormant series. It fails to understand what could've made a Legacy of Kain retro throwback special, and thus lacks any passion for the series in the final product.

The April Fools' Day game comparison I made up top is particularly harsh, but it's because I'm trying to make sense of a joke of an experience that launched on March 31. If it were a fan-made or jokingly made 2D platformer, I wouldn't be concerned with its shortcomings, but it's an entirely serious new entry in a beloved franchise.

Legacy of Kain: Ascendance shows that simply slapping a retro IP on a bad game isn't enough to overcome shortcomings; in fact, an IP can make those problems even more noticeable. We can only hope that the poor quality and reception toward this game don't force the series into dormancy for another 23 years. Then again, if this is the level of quality Crystal Dynamics is okay with for the franchise, maybe it's best that these vampires remain in slumber.

Review code for Legacy of Kain: Ascendance was provided by the publisher. 

• The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hit theaters this week and is full of retro references and cameos.
  • Namely, Fox McCloud from the Star Fox series (portrayed by Glen Powell) plays a major role in the game. That's relevant because...
• Nintendo insiders have suggested that a new Star Fox game is launching this summer and that a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will be released before the end of the year.
• Capcom brought the classic PC versions of Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and Breath of Fire IV to Steam, but you're probably better off playing them through GOG so they have no DRM.
• The previously teased Evercade Nexus is a new handheld gaming console.

Here's what I've been playing lately:

• Super Meat Boy 3D: Critical opinion on this one has been quite mixed, but I've been enjoying it. Super Meat Boy 3D is the classic Super Meat Boy formula by way of Super Mario 3D World, and I loved both of those games. Its crass humor isn't as charming in 2026 as it was in 2010, but the intense and difficult platforming is. Perception is harder to nail in 2D than 3D, but by using some of the game's accessibility options to better show Meat Boy's position within each level, that becomes less of an issue.
• Pokémon LeafGreen: I bought this game on Nintendo Switch for a Polygon story this past weekend and quickly put way too much time into it. While it's a tad on the easy side for me as an adult, these classic Pokémon games are still absolutely wonderful masterclasses in completing RPG design.
• Darwin's Paradox: This octopus-starring 2D platformer is incredibally cute and charming. Expect to see more on this game from me on Polygon this weekend!

That's all for Remastered this week. I've decided to retire "The Games We Played" as a weekly section for now, as I've discussed most of the games I wanted to. I may bring it back in the future if I feel compelled to write about a certain game that was influential for a developer I speak to or me.

Consider supporting me on Ko-fi if you enjoyed this week's newsletter. See you all in two weeks for the next one!