As launch trailers go, Ryse: Son of Rome's is a good one: It's pure cinematic bombast, with dramatic music, sweeping vistas, inspirational narration and waves of dudes meeting their ends in all sorts of stabby, slashy, blood-splattering ways.
Ryse isn't a new game, of course, having debuted last year for the Xbox One, so there's already plenty of information about the gameplay kicking around. The focus on the PC release is thus all about the technology, which will support for 4K resolution, supersampling and other high-end visual options.
In fact, Crytek said last month that its singular focus on technology is the reason it opted to forgo the microtransactions that were present in the Xbox One release. "It enabled us to focus more of our time and energy on pushing the visual fidelity we were after with 4K," the studio said. "Enabling microtransactions for the PC version of Ryse would have taken additional time and we simply chose not to."
Sadly, it seems that great technology does not necessarily translate into a great game. Our Ryse: Son of Rome review says it looks fantastic, "but it's too narrow and repetitive, even for a short game."
Strong trailer though.
