14 DAY TRIAL // Crytek is bringing its acclaimed action-adventure video game Ryse: Son of Rome to PC in October, and a new video aims to shed some light on the improvements over last year's Xbox One exclusive edition.
The fine folks at DigitalFoundry got their hands on a press preview copy of Ryse: Son of Rome and put it to the test, even putting together a nice side-by-side video comparison between the PC and Xbox One editions of the title, available below.
Ryse: Son of Rome came out 10 months ago, part of Microsoft's latest home entertainment system's launch lineup, and the hack-and-slash game was considered one of the prime examples of what the new hardware was able to pull off.
It won praise for its graphical fidelity and has single-handedly demonstrated that the Xbox One is a serious presence on the market, in spite of the PlayStation 4's slightly superior hardware. It was, however, criticized for its quick-time-event-fueled gameplay and repetitive nature, which the PC version, unfortunately, won't address.
What the PC edition will do, as the company has revealed, is offer an even more beautiful experience for those who own powerful gaming rigs, with a plethora of different visual toggles to toy with in order to squeeze the last bit of juice out of your graphics card and lose yourself in the detailed game world.
A lot of small improvements, but not that big of a difference
However, don't expect a game-changing experience, as the analysis shows that the Xbox One and PC versions are pretty evenly matched, even with the game running in native 1080p, at 60 frames per second.
"What's clear from our testing though is that the overall look and feel of the Xbox One version of the game is a very close approximation of the top-end settings on PC. There do seem to be some minor improvements on the new PC version though - for example, there does seem to be some variance on LODs in the first level - perhaps Crytek manually tweaks the settings on console to maintain performance," the Digital Foundry crew says.
"There also appears to be small improvements to individual elements too, such as self-shadowing on the characters. However, for the most part, major rendering components appear closely matched with PC improvements brought about mainly through sheer computational brute force," the analysis concludes.
Ryse: Son of Rome follows a lifelong story of revenge, putting players in the shoes of a Roman solider witnessing the decline of the empire and being given the chance to enact his vengeance upon those who killed his family.
The game will also come bundled with each and every DLC pack released on Xbox One from the get-go, representing the definitive edition for all those who want to get the full experience, in addition to giving those who haven't played it on Microsoft's console the chance to immerse themselves in the world of ancient Rome.
Developer Crytek is self-publishing the digital edition of the game, with the physical one being handled by Deep Silver. Gamers can expect the game to become available starting October 10, and pre-orders are already up on Steam, for those who want to also nab the game's majestic orchestral soundtrack.
