Crytek producer Michael Read recently spoke to Siliconera about how the demo for Ryse: Son of Rome, the upcoming Xbox One exclusive launch title, will be a lot more different than what was showcased at E3 2013. He also stated the developer didn’t do a very good job of explaining just how much there was to the game.
When asked about the combo system in the game, Read stated that, “This is why had need to do a deeper explanation because what we presented on the kit for E3 was being perceived as what the final game is going to be. And really, it was a very tiny slice. There are some scripted moments in there that we had to put in.
“There are a couple of guys you strike them two times – especially the first guy you strike in there he immediately goes into an execution state. This is the same demo that we used in actual E3 piece that we’ve shown online as well.
“What you’re going to see in the final game, you’re going to see various levels of difficulty from easy mode I think up to nightmare. I don’t know if they have decided on that. But, what’s going to change in there is the amount of the damage that enemies is going to do to you and how accurate that you are going to do on blocking. And then of course what ties into that is execution state when you put them into that.
“Some of the higher archetype guys, I mean they are going to take a lot of hits to put it. We are going to throw some stupid guys in there, where it’s probably going to take two hits, especially early on in the game to get you used to the control system and how that all works. There’s a lot we should have explained. We didn’t do a good job of doing that.” Read also clarified that the number of executions in the game would close to 100, rather than 120.
It’s still early yet for Ryse though. “A lot of the design elements and balancing weren’t even in there yet. So, to throw those in and here to play the game, I mean, it makes for an awful experience. But I think at the same time, we simplified things a little bit too much but we didn’t do a good job in explaining the combat.
“Right now, you play the demo you have X is your hit, Y is your shield bash, A is your block, B will lead you into execution mode. [Pointing to the left triggers] So that’s for your call-outs. This will be like your focus. This [right trigger] is to throw out your pilums.
“It was such a small core bit of what we were showing in the gameplay itself, and you know, maybe we should have shown more. Maybe we should have done a hands off piece and gone into a lot more detail.”