Ryse: Son of Rome’s Combat Used to Enhance ‘Emotional Journey’

Ryse: Son of Rome, the Xbox One-exclusive title coming from Crytek, isn’t just a mindless hack-and-slash title without any sort of emotion. Actually, Crytek president Cevat Yerli doesn’t even want people to refer to the graphically flashy experience as a “hack and slash,” as the realistic battles and human-on-human violence calls for a term less fantastical. This “combat game” is aiming to be more than just another violent romp through a unique era, and Yerli is looking to accomplish that goal through the addition of a poignant, emotional narrative.

“We wanted to tell the story of a soldier and a substantial proportion of that is fighting. I don't like the term hack and slash – our game is a combat game,” he said in an interview with CVG. “We are definitely as accessible as any other combat game – but hack and slash is, for me, more like fantasy monsters. Combat games are usually between humans and other humans.

“We chose a combat game because it added punch to the emotional journey we already had. And, also combat again, is an opportunity for us to put to put our standpoint and say 'this is how we, Crytek, would do combat and how we would portray it, cut it, do the performance capture…’ I think we found a style that could be interesting for the future to build on top.”

Son of Rome, which Microsoft sees as one of the best looking games around, will launch alongside the Xbox One Nov. 22.