I have been with the series since 1999. At first I was mostly passive in the community, lurking and reading on the Nosgothic Realm forums. The internet was not so widespread in my country so I had to rely on visiting internet cafés and using school internet to download the latest info about Legacy of Kain, mostly from The Lost Worlds and Dark Chronicle. I absolutely loved all the discoveries made by Ben Lincoln and even was saving the information to disquettes, so I could read it later. Ben is a big inspiration to me and continues to be an invaluable part of our community to this day.
Years passed and in 2003, LOK: Defiance was released as the last proper entry in the series. I only got my hands on Blood Omen afterwards, as I could not find a copy in my country. When the news about Dark Prophecy's cancellation hit, we were still hopeful we will get a continuation at some point. Then we got Nosgoth multi-player game in 2013 and learnt about Dead Sun being cancelled, then Nosgoth got cancelled in 2016...
LOK fans have been through a lot, but we would still had some hope left. Lara Crof and Guardian of Light added a Kain & Raziel DLC in 2011 and there is a Razielim symbol in Tomb Raider: Reloaded (mobile) releasing in 2022, but there still is no sign of a new game to this day despite the countless repeating rumours about the Bluepoint doing a remake which has been proven false (enough with these already). Now with the recent acquisition by the Embracer group, things got interesting. LOK was mentioned prominently in their investor call and it is almost certain things will be moving in our favour. What will the new direction be? Reboot, remake, remaster? We shall see.
Over the years, one of my goals was to provide all of the original in-game soundtracks from the games which never got an official release except the promo SR2 OST. Both SR1 and SR2 soundtracks were long term projects as I released several versions of them and it was time consuming (minimum of 100h for each SR1 OST release due to it having so almost 200 track variations). I have also done many game playthroughs, posted several alpha & beta discoveries in video and written form. Together with LOK Fandom we released the Arcane Tomes lore videos, I uploaded detailed SR1 beta and alpha graphics comparisons, etc. As a visual artist, I love working with Photoshop and enjoy video / graphics editing in my projects.
One of my past venturs was into the realm of texture modding thanks to Tomb Raider 2 HD and by making an upscaled texture pack for Soul Reaver in 2020 (thanks goes to KainReaver for letting me know about Flycast). My inspiration stems from the amazing work of other fellow modders - particularly Tomb Raider 3 HD Remaster by Giovanni Luca which prompted me to do my own for Tomb Raider 2 (play demo here) and I also want to thank Mateusz and his War of the Worlds custom Tomb Raider level set which influenced me into making my own website.
While my modding days are over these days thanks to being hired by Saber Interactive and currently by Crystal Dynamics, I do look at those days fondly and how every project, no matter how small or unfinished, contributed to my growth and improving skills as an artist. Eventually, I got noticed and had the honour to work with the most amazing individuals, fans just like me, handpicked from over the world to work in an official capacity on my favourite franchises Legacy of Kain and Tomb Raider. This is an opportunity of a lifetime and my 12 year old self would never believe I would be working on these games as a developer over 25 years later. I was told I should grow up from playing games by many people, but I knew that would never be the case and I am glad I never listened to such advice and becoming a texture archaelogist and artist thanks to videogames.
I want to thank all the fans out there for carrying Kain's legacy, either through forums, personal websites, countless fan art, fan games and other projects. Special thanks goes to Terry who designed a brand new logo for my website. Thank you all also for your support over the years and I am happy you still tune into our Nosgoth News Network to check out what is the latest in the land of Nosgoth. Until next time!
Vae Victis!
- Raina Audron
"As long as a single one of us stands, we are legion."
- Kain, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver