Among the Xbox One launch titles, Crytek’s Ryse: Son of Rome clearly stands out to me as the must-have game. This may be a little obvious, given relatively few blockbuster-style exclusives in Microsoft’s debut titles for its game console, which launches on Nov. 22.
Ryse: Son of Rome
I played the initial level of the game at a recent Microsoft event, and I was much more impressed with the title than when I saw it at the E3 trade show in June. In the game, you play a Roman general named Marius Titus. You can fight your way through barbarian cavalry, mashing buttons to attack foes and slice their limbs off with your sword, or you can command troops to launch arrows or fire scorpios into crowds of enemies.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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