Ryse: Son of Rome Looks for Redemption

High-profile Xbox One game tries again to wow gamers.

While there's a lot to like about the visuals and the subject matter, Microsoft's Roman-era third-person action game for Xbox One did not, by many accounts, demo well at E3 last month. For an epic focused on visually stunning cinematic melee combat, the seemingly scripted combat sequences left me and many other gamers feeling less than enthusiastic. The developers of Ryse immediately assured me that the combat is varied and dynamic, but after seeing and playing the demo at Comic Con, I'm not sure the message is coming through.

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Crytek assured me that the combat is varied and dynamic, but I'm not sure the message is coming through.

The demo shows the same Cliffs of Dover level, which is very clearly a sort of Classical Era D-Day, complete with galleys surging through the surf, legionaries storming up the beach, and, believe it or not, a close call with an artillery shell that layers a familiar gauzed, muffled filter over the subsequent action. It's not so much Spartacus as it is Saving Private Marius. The team admits to a bit of historical reinterpretation and abstraction for the sake of improving the game's story, but won't say more on that subject for fear of spoiling some future surprises.

Ryse is undoubtedly one of the most cinematic action games of the year, with exactly the same sort of scripted "Oh wow!" moments that you'd expect to find in a game like Call of Duty. Watching as ballistae demolish a castle, or as a formation of Roman soldiers raise their shields to fend off a volley of flaming arrows definitely grabs your attention and gives a tremendously encouraging look at the types of visuals we can expect from the next generation of consoles.

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It's not so much Spartacus as it is Saving Private Marius.

The executions in particular are especially effective. When you enter into an execution move, you'll see the reactions on the faces of both the killer and the killed. Playing the demo, however, I'm still not sure that's enough to make up for what still feel, to me, like canned animations. Granted we haven't had loads of time with the game, but the fighting in the Ryse demo still seems to rely more on the visceral visuals than the actual mechanics. The team will be adjusting the rather inelegant button prompts in favor of more subtle visual and audio cues, but still suggest that the next-gen appeal of the combat lies more in seeing the expressions on your victim's faces than in completely open-ended combat. We're going to need substantial time with a bigger build of the game in order to know for sure which way it's heading.
How "Bromans" shake hands.
Microsoft's also keen to show Ryse's ability to integrate with Smartglass in several interesting ways. In addition to providing the basic community news and video highlights, the game's tablet experience includes options to customize and upgrade your character. And if you're playing Ryse at the same as your friends, you can see everyone's progress on a simple bar that stretches from one end of the game to the other. This timeline will even call out events where you can earn certain Achievements. In my demo, the player was notified of a chance to get an Achievement for kicking an enemy off a wall. A handy video was also available in case the player wanted to see exactly which enemy needed to be booted off. All these game help options are, of course, entirely optional.
The developers promise even stronger demos at PAX and GamesCom, where we're likely to find out more about the game's multiplayer mode, the first tidbits of which we got at E3.

 

Ryse: Son of Rome

Published by: Microsoft

Developed by: Crytek Studios

Genre: Action

Release Date:

United States: November 2013

UK: November 2013

Australia: November 2013

MSRP: 59.99 USD

RP-M+ for Rating Pending, Targeting a Rating of Mature or Above

Also Available On:

Also known as: Ryse