Ryse: Son Of Rome Was Initially A Very Different Game, Thanks to Found Prototype Footage

Ryse: Son Of Rome was met with a lot of criticism for its simplistic combat and short narrative, but the story itself was incredible and visually far beyond its time. Unfortunately, that stunning story was far shorter than necessary, though apparently it had a much different take early on in development thanks to recent prototype footage uncovered during an auction. 

Before viewing the footage at the top of the article, it’s important to remember that this was prototype footage when the game was still very much in concept phase. Because of that, the graphics are more than a little rough, not even close to resembling the breathtaking visuals that Son of Rome had at launch. 

How the footage came to be is it was discovered in an Xbox 360 dev kit and from there, we got an inside look at what the studio Crytek originally had in their head for how this Roman tale would go. Codenamed ‘Kingdoms’, the time period and the Quick Time Events were a staple from the go, though the team didn’t know which perspective they wanted to go with, tampering with both a hack n slash style and the seen first-person vantage point. 

From the looks of it, even though it was just a concept video, is it looked like they weren’t settled on a narrative focus, instead going the more hack n slash route with a heavy focus on combat. Looking at the footage above, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that would eventually become Ryse: Son of Rome, which is an interesting testament to the development process. 

Thoughts on the early prototype for Ryse: Son of Rome? Hit us up over on Twitter @PrimaGames, or chat me up over at @DirtyEffinHippy, to talk about your take on the early journey for the Roman adventure.