Ryse: Son of Rome

I went in expecting a middling port of a forgotten console launch title and came out genuinely surprised by how much Ryse: Son of Rome commits to its own spectacle. Crytek built something that looks, in places, almost photorealistic, and the art direction, from the forests of Britannia to the coliseums of Rome, holds up better than most games released years after it. The production values are the real star here, and the game knows it. The story follows Marius Titus, a Roman centurion working his way through a revenge plot that telegraphs its twists early and leans hard into Hollywood myth over historical accuracy. Barbarians attack Rome using, at one point, Hannibal's elephants. The gods meddle. The emperor is corrupt. It is not a subtle story. What it does have is genuinely strong voice acting and some cinematic moments, particularly the larger siege sequences, where you're commanding legions and kicking ladders off castle walls, that land with real impact. Combat is where Ryse earns its Metacritic 61 and its Steam Very Positive rating at the same time, depending entirely on what you want from a six-hour action game. The system is built around sword strikes, shield bashes, counters, dodge rolls, and a spear throw for ranged targets. Land enough hits and you trigger an execution, a slow-motion finisher where Marius dismembers enemies in ways that were genuinely striking in 2013 and still carry some visceral punch. A d-pad perk system lets you assign execution rewards, choosing between health regeneration, experience bonuses, focus, or damage buffs on the fly. That small layer of decision-making is almost the entire depth of the combat. By chapter three, you have seen every move in the toolkit, and the enemy variety is thin enough that repetition sets in hard. The execution QTEs, where color-coded prompts ask you to press the matching button, feel like they belong on a console, which makes sense because this was originally an Xbox One exclusive and the PC port makes little effort to disguise that origin. The co-op coliseum mode, a wave-based arena where two players fight together and level up gear between rounds, extends the experience if you have a friend willing to revisit it. The gear and leveling system is light enough that it barely registers as progression, though. The campaign itself runs around six to seven hours on a first playthrough, which is either lean and focused or insultingly short depending on your tolerance for cinematic action games with no branching paths, no stealth options, and no open space to breathe in. Who is this for in 2025? Honestly, players who love ancient Roman aesthetics and want something that plays like a Sunday-afternoon action film are the sweet spot. If you burned out on Arkham-style counter-heavy brawlers, nothing here will change your mind. If you appreciate CryEngine tech and want to see what a studio that made Crysis poured into a historical action game, the visual showpiece angle alone justifies a discounted purchase. Just do not expect God of War depth or replayability. Alex, Scout Team