Crytek: Xbox One let us put emotion into Ryse

The power of the Xbox One allowed the team at Crytek to put emotion into Ryse: Son of Rome.

The incredible looking launch title is powered by a maturing CryEngine, and coupled with the processing power of the Xbox One it was able to churn out some amazing visuals.

Ryse design director PJ Esteves spoke about how the engine went on to benefit the final product.

"Honestly, the engine has been one of the smoothest parts of the whole project," he told Develop. "From the time of Crysis 2 we were working with DX11 already. We were two games deep with DX11 and working with a 360 game learning about how ecosystem works. So that all helped.

"I think it was about a week to get up and running on Xbox One from the time we got the first kits. Having a great partnership with Microsoft helped, to prepare us as the platform developed alongside our game. Any launch game lands hot; it doesn't matter who you are.

"But having a mature engine really helped, and getting to harness things like physically based rendering was incredible. Improvements in facial animation pipelines are great too. It's a terrible way to say it, but CryEngine and the Xbox One have let our game be the hot one at the launch prom."

Esteves also touched on how the Xbox One's power was an important factor in making the game look so good.

"The Xbox One gave us AI that really feels just human enough," he added.

"You can see pain as you slice at a guy, or you see surprise. It's always hard work, but the Xbox One let us give the game more emotion as we took Ryse forward."