As we may have mentioned on the site once or twice before, we have something of a soft spot for historically themed games. With hundreds, if not thousands of years of human conflict to draw on, the past offers themes, settings and scenarios every bit as interesting as any sci-fi universe - but while some periods of time have been done to death, others have only been rarely explored in game form. But Microsoft's flagship Xbox One title, Ryse: Son of Rome, looks set to do its bit to put that right.
Originally in development for the Xbox 360 as a Kinect game, Ryse was announced a few years ago by way of a teaser trailer, before promptly disappearing under the surface, seemingly never to be seen again. Little was heard of the game for a number of years, but it turns out the radio silence wasn't without reason, as the game's been given a major overhaul - and the results are looking rather promising indeed. Transforming from a Kinect powered brawler into a controller based action game, Ryse: Son of Rome is looking like one of the most impressive Xbox One titles, and a game that'll launch day and date with Microsoft's new console.
Flyingus swordius stabbingus. Check out those shoes.
During their conference at the recent games trade show, E3, Microsoft showed off the first footage of their redesigned Ryse, and the elements that make it tick. A hack and slash style action game, Ryse promises to capture the physicality of Roman era combat (big swords, strong shields, heavy body armour), in an authentically recreated Roman world, including our very own Britannia. The demo shown at the conference actually took place in a recreation of Roman Dover, and, as you'd probably expect, had more than a slight feel of Gladiator to it, with a sprinkling of 300 mixed in for good measure.
Still, the action on show was nothing if not impressive in scale. Beginning with the storming of a beach, the demo begins as dozens of soldiers leap off the side of their boat, as hundreds of arrows fly down from the mainland. In an unsettling moment, one of them caught one of your fellow soldiers in the eye, who ran around screaming, trying to pull it out. From there on in, it was all go - after narrowly avoiding being squished by a giant boulder - presumably having been chucked your way by a trebuchet - another Roman ship crashed onto the beach in flames, its torn sales billowing in the wind.
Switching into combat, our soldier suddenly found himself surrounded by barbarians. Parrying their blows with a well timed push of a shield, it seems you'll be able to knock enemy soldiers off their balance, triggering a "quick time event", where you have to mash a button that pops up on screen within a certain amount of time to perform a fancy move. And there were certainly lots of those - whether you're kicking an enemy off the edge of a castle, or bashing them in the face with your shield, everyone will be able to look like an experienced centurion at the touch of a button. But although you'd probably expect a game featuring Roman style combat to be pretty physical, it'd be nice if it at least felt like they were trying to minimise any unnecessary violence, rather than taking every chance possible to show you someone stabbing a guy in the throat, or throwing a soldier to the ground with a sword sticking through their torso.
Either way, with lashings of history stacked on top of an at least solid looking game with an incredible sense of scale, Ryse: Son of Rome may be one to keep an eye on when it launches alongside the Xbox One later this November. In the meantime, why not take a look at the debutius trailerus below. Us.
