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What are some of the best-looking games of all time? Many examples that come to my mind are not from this generation, but rather the early 2010s: Metal Gear Solid 5, The Witcher 3, and Batman: Arkham Knight all looked stunning upon release, and still do today. <\/p>\n
To this list I would also add Ryse: Son of Rome, German developer Crytek\u2019s ill-fated Xbox One launch title in which you play as a Roman centurion seeking to avenge his dead family. It is gloriously, mouth-wateringly cinematic, more so than many actual works of cinema.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it\u2019s also rather short, taking only around 6 hours to complete. Former employees say as much as two thirds of planned content had to be cut in the race to make launch day. The crunch was brutal, but many of the game\u2019s creators took comfort in the knowledge they were laying the foundations for not just a sequel, but an entire franchise \u2013 one that would take us far beyond Rome. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\nHow Empires Fall<\/strong><\/h2>\nWhile work on the original game was wrapping up, four concept artists, a historical researcher, and the key leadership team of Ryse: Son of Rome got together to figure out where they could take things moving forward. <\/p>\n
Leading this group was Patrick Hanenberger, a production designer who had previously worked at DreamWorks. He\u2019d initially been brought on board as a visual consultant to help make Ryse feel \u2013 as Crytek\u2019s then-CEO Cevat Yerli used to say \u2013 like a \u201cplayable movie.\u201d Later, he tells IGN, \u201cthey offered me a job as the franchise\u2019s art director.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also set to be involved in some capacity was Todd Papy of Sony\u2019s Santa Monica Studio. Papy joined Crytek in late 2013 after having directed God of War: Ascension to work on what was then reported<\/u> to be an \u201cunannounced project.\u201d A former Crytek employee who spoke to IGN under condition of anonymity affirmed what was back then just speculation: that he would apply his experience with games set in ancient Greece to a game set in ancient Rome. <\/p>\nA lot of people were super keen on Japan, unsurprisingly. But that\u2019s not like going from Rome to Greece. It would have been a big departure.
\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\nWhether any of the sequels would in fact be set in Rome was, however, the subject of debate. \u201cPart of the conversations that were happening were about what it was that people were liking about Ryse,\u201d Yannick Boucher, who served as one of the original game\u2019s project managers, tells IGN. \u201cWas it the Roman thing specifically, or history more generally? Do we stay in Rome, or go to some other empire?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was super stoked to do a Viking game,\u201d recalls Peter Gornstein, Ryse\u2019s art director and director of cinematics. For one, the opportunities were endless: a game about Vikings could have taken players on raids along the English and French coasts, the shores of Newfoundland, and even the city of Constantinople, where they served as bodyguards to Byzantine emperors. It was also uncharted territory \u2013 at least back then. The History Channel\u2019s Vikings TV show was still on its first season, and Assassin\u2019s Creed Valhalla <\/em>nearly a decade away. <\/p>\n\u201cIt would have been great to explore a part of history that a lot of people didn\u2019t yet know about,\u201d says Gornstein. <\/p>\n
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Other settings that were reportedly considered included feudal Japan \u2013 Hanenberger mentions a number of events that interested him, including the failed Mongol invasions led by Kublai Khan, the arrival of European merchants, and the civil wars of the Sengoku period \u2013 as well as the Ottoman Empire, which defeated the Byzantines in 1453. <\/p>\n
Not everyone was on board with leaving Rome. As Boucher puts it: \u201cSome felt like we had just set the foundations for this IP, and now we were already diverging a bit. A lot of people were super keen on Japan, unsurprisingly. But that\u2019s not like going from Rome to Greece. It would have been a big departure.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hanenberger thought of several ways to connect and justify expanding settings. Thematically, for example, the franchise could come to explore the question of \u201chow empires rise and fall \u2013 and why.\u201d He also considered tying each installment together narratively, with characters and events in one game linking back to another. Each story could be set in motion by that of the previous installment, like dominos. Or, you know, history itself. <\/p>\n
Rhyming With History<\/strong><\/h2>\nHad those planned sequels happened, they would have featured a more open-ended design than the original Ryse. \u201cWhen we talked about correcting some of that game\u2019s weaknesses,\u201d says Boucher, \u201cchanging the levels was among the first things that came up, as most of them were basically just a straight corridor.\u201d The vision at the time was not far off from God of War 2018: not quite open-world, but not completely linear either. <\/p>\n
The team also thought about introducing new game mechanics, many of them cut from or left out of the original Ryse due to time constraints, including vehicle navigation and a PVP multiplayer mode (Son of Rome ended up having both solo and co-op PVE where you fought off waves inside the Colosseum). <\/p>\n
Microsoft told us it was the most cohesive and well-thought IP pitch they had ever seen.
\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\nThe anonymous employee tells me they would have liked to have made single-player combat more dynamic. In parts of Ryse, when you venture into Britain to crush the rebellion of Queen Boudica, you advance in testudo formation, raising your shield alongside your fellow soldiers to form an impregnable barrier. In the final game, gameplay is limited to shielding yourself from enemy fire and returning fire of your own \u2013 all with the press of a button. \u201cOur original plan was that you\u2019d be able to leave and reenter this formation at will,\u201d they say, \u201cfighting enemies on your own and then returning to position when you feel like doing so.\u201d <\/p>\n
The sequels could have played around with other real-world military tactics, like the Parthian shot (where cavalry soldiers feign a full-speed retreat, only to turn around and firing arrows) or Kakuyoku (a Sengoku-era formation<\/u> where a single defensive line turns into a pincer movement, attacking the enemy from both sides).<\/p>\n
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One area where the sequels would not diverge from the original Ryse <\/em>was aesthetics. Son of Rome was not historically accurate, but it did aim for a certain emotional or psychological accuracy. As Gornstein puts it, they did not try to present Rome as it was, but as how it might have appeared to someone \u201cwho lived in a village somewhere, five hours away. To someone who visited the city for the first and only time in their life, everything must have seemed completely overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s the same sensation as when, in the game, you go to York and Dover,\u201d Hanenberger adds. \u201cThose cliffs are awe-inspiring. That\u2019s what we were trying to capture, and would have wanted to capture going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The original game wasn\u2019t just larger-than-life, but also veered into the supernatural, with two seemingly mortal characters \u2013 Aquilo and Aestas \u2013 revealed to be gods, playing a secret game with people as their pawns. This supernatural element, says Gornstein, would have continued in the sequels, mapped onto different religions and mythologies. As in the original, though, their presence would have remained subtle, pushed into the background.<\/p>\n