As a result of the events that took place in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2, Raziel and Kain found themselves imprisoned in the Serafan castle. After being torn apart by a series of unexpected occurrences, Raziel was compelled to withdraw into the ghostly realm, and Kain was left to make his own way out of the Serafan. Both parties need to find a way out of the difficult situation they are currently in and engage in combat with those who wish to use them as tools of manipulation in a more extensive scheme. Both characters are letting out yells of defiance, and they have a strong desire to unearth the secrets that are supposedly hidden somewhere on the planet of Nosgoth.
Legacy of Kain: Defiance is a third-person action game with some mild elements of puzzle-solving. It combines ideas that were previously seen in Blood Omen 2 and Soul Reaver 2. The narrative is broken up into chapters, each of which focuses on either Kain or Raziel as they embark on a distinct mission but are yet connected with the others. The player takes control of a different character for each level, but from a third-person perspective regardless of which character they are controlling. Both heroes have unique characteristics, but their movement, offensive, and defensive capabilities, as well as their capacity to jump and access their special abilities, are comparable.
Both Kain and Raziel no longer wield individual weapons; rather, they rely on different iterations of the Soul Reaver (Kain uses the physical sword form, Raziel uses an energy blade). Each Soul Reaver now has the ability to “charge” itself in order to activate a unique ability, the nature of which is dictated by the Soul Reaver’s current alignment. Both Kain and Raziel experience a continuous drain on their life energy and are required to consume food in order to restore it (Kain feeds on the blood of living creatures, Raziel feeds on the souls of the living and non-living creatures). And both Kain and Raziel have telekinetic skills, which allow them to affect items at a distance without physically touching them.
However, they are two distinct characters with their own unique gameplay styles, and overcoming challenges in either one requires a unique combination of the characters’ respective abilities (sometimes the same obstacle). The emphasis of Kain’s gameplay is on powerful fighting and destructive skills. By utilizing the qualities of the Pillars of Nosgoth, he is able to give the Soul Reaver weapon a significant boost in power. Raziel possesses a greater degree of subtlety and is able to make use of stealth as well as the ability to phase between the material and spectral worlds in order to locate new routes. Raziel can phase into the spectral world at any time, but in order to phase back out, he needs to identify a certain area first. This is the same as in Soul Reaver. Raziel gives the Soul Reaver more strength by channeling the energies of the elements.
