Ryse: Son of Rome Was Originally Considered to Be Xbox’s Version of Assassin's Creed

In 2013, Crytek, the studio best known for the Crysis franchise, released Ryse: Son of Rome—an ambitious Xbox One exclusive set in Ancient Rome. At the time, the game impressed many players with its realistic graphics and brutal combat system. However, it received mixed reviews and ultimately failed to become a financial success.

It turned out that the developers had big ambitions to turn Ryse into a full-fledged franchise, one that could eventually become the Assassin's Creed of Xbox. In a recent interview with IGN, several members of the development team—including production designer Patrick Hanenberger, project manager Yannick Boucher, art director Peter Gornstein, and others—revealed that planned but scrapped installments of Ryse might have taken players to a Viking setting, as well as to Japan, England, France, Constantinople, and beyond. You can check out more details from the IGN interview below:

“Part of the conversations that were happening were about what it was that people were liking about Ryse. Was it the Roman thing specifically, or history more generally? Do we stay in Rome, or go to some other empire?

I was super stoked to do a Viking game. 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 – at least back then. The History Channel’s Vikings TV show was still on its first season, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla nearly a decade away. It would have been great to explore a part of history that a lot of people didn’t yet know about.

Some 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’s not like going from Rome to Greece. It would have been a big departure.”

Last month, there were also rumors that Ryse: Son of Rome might get a remastered version soon. However, since then there has been no further news on the matter, and Crytek hasn't commented on it. If it does happen, who knows—perhaps the audience will give the game a second chance, and maybe someday in the future we'll see a new installment in the series.

Ryse: Son of Rome is now available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S (via backward compatibility).