I only picked up an Xbox One three years into the last generation, and Ryse: Son of Rome didn’t even enter my mind when I was looking for what few exclusives I’d missed. I eventually added it to my library when it was heavily discounted and promptly ignored it for another 5 years according to my transaction history. Having finally played through the campaign mode in 2024, two thoughts stood out: one, the negative sentiment towards Xbox after the botched Xbox One launch must’ve been severe if both this game and IP were swiftly forgotten; and two, I really miss big-budget games that could be completed in a dozen or less hours, and had actual endings that let me walk away with a sense of completion.
Old flaws feel like modern perks
Which is not to imply Ryse: Son of Rome is some underappreciated masterpiece. By 2013 standards, it would have felt distinctly average aside from the technical highlights. By 2024 standards, I found some of its flaws now feel like positives – so long as you go in with your expectations in check. It functions as a compact version of the formulaic action-adventure that now dominates blockbuster games: a third-person perspective with lavish character models and animations; a strong focus on the presentation with lengthy cutscenes for storytelling; and a cinematic flair to the action, with tons of canned animations and the sensation the game is sometimes playing itself for fear you interrupt the transitions into cutscenes. The only thing it’s missing is an open-world structure – which I now consider that a good thing.
What made it most enjoyable to me in 2024 was the pacing of its brief campaign; brevity that serves the gameplay loop well, as it probably wouldn’t hold up past the 8-hour mark, no matter how much audiovisual spectacle is thrown at you. You control Roman soldier Marius Titus, in an alternate history Rome, during the time of Emperor Nero (and yes, he has much the same physique as Demetrian Titus in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine if that came to mind!). Political change is in the air and the vast expanse of the Empire is making it difficult to govern. After a chaotic prologue sets the stakes, Marius recounts his story to the emperor leading up to that point, beginning with a visit to his Senator father and family in Rome after completing his training. The reunion is interrupted when a barbarian war party raids the city; his mother and sister are on screen just long enough to die and provide motivation for another hyper-masculine, vengeance-driven campaign; and his father only lasts a little longer before telling him to save Rome in his dying breath.
What follows is a visually diverse and often spectacular campaign that’ll see you invade Britannia in the Roman equivalent of the D-Day Landings, battle southern rebels and wild Northmen in the fog-swathed Highlands, evacuate a fortress city under siege, and finally return to a collapsing Rome after Marius realises a cowardly emperor and his psychopathic sons might be the real problem as “barbarian” hordes rise up as a result of Roman oppression. Naturally, you’ll meet and kill several historical figures from legend in the process. On the sidelines, there’s another battle being waged by Roman gods trying manipulate mankind through prophecy and direct intervention, with Marius taking up the mantle of Damocles to enact revenge. I found the storytelling still holds up thanks to the impressive visuals and sense of scale (well, for the time), the lengthy but well-directed cutscenes, and some excellent voice work throughout.
Hack, slash, QTE, repeat
Now I’ve got this far without discussing gameplay, as while tutorials make it sound complex, the mechanics are simple, satisfying, but increasingly repetitive by the end. Ryse: Son of Rome uses the classic attack, dodge, block, and counter rhythm that Batman: Arkham Asylum pioneered in 2009 – just with a sword-and-shield focus, less “gadgets”, and gory takedowns. You build up combos with basic strikes; you block or parry with your shield; dodge glowing attacks; kick or use charged attacks to break an enemy’s guard; use a focus ability to slow time for free hits, and trigger QTE-driven executions on a single or pair of targets. These executions never fail once started, but if you match the prompts, you get bonus points towards health and focus restoration, a temporary damage boost, or XP that goes into a perfunctory skill tree that boosts basic attributes and execution bonuses. It’s an intuitive enough system that looks and feels great when you hold off a surrounding horde and execute them all in gory fashion.
The problem with Ryse: Son of Rome is that it barely evolves over what was a 7-ish hour campaign for me – possibly less if you just ignore the underwhelming collectibles. For the bulk of your playtime, you move down glorified corridors with beautiful and sometimes chaotic backdrops full of battling soldiers, frequently getting locked into combat arenas – sometimes literally – until you defeat all the enemies. If you’re lucky, there might be two paths you can take, or a dead-end with a collectible. To spice things up, you’ll sometimes fight alongside fellow soldiers, triggering sequences where you march in a shielded formation and fling spears at archers, defend a point by assigning shield-bearers and archers to cover paths, and even engage in turret sequences using implausibly rapid-fire crossbows. Each act also features a boss fight or two, but these are often simplistic one-vs-one battles that only ask you observe attack patterns in each phase, then trigger the right counter to chip away at their health bar. Even on higher difficulties, they’re underwhelming compared to common late-game battles that throw numerous enemy variants at you simultaneously.
Is it still worth playing?
Now despite wrapping up on a negative note, most of my gameplay concerns only came to mind after I had finished the campaign and had time to mull over the experience. When you consider Sony released The Last of Us in the same year, pushing the technical limits of the PlayStation 3 and their storytelling ambitions, it’s easy to see why Ryse: Son of Rome failed to stand out. However, when you consider 2020’s The Last of Us: Part II now demands 25+ hours of trudging through misery interspersed with despair to see the end, I think there’s still good reason to return to older and shorter big-budget titles – even if they were considered unremarkable at the time. If you missed it at launch, Ryse: Son of Rome still offers a single satisfying playthough for those short on time but after a “AAA” experience.
Ryse: Son of Rome was played on an Xbox Series S|X. It is also available on Xbox One and PC.
