For the last couple of months, gamers have wondered why Crytek has chosen to port Ryse: Son of Rome to the PC and not the PS4 — which leads the console race. Despite not having any official plans at the moment, there’s plenty of reasons to believe that Ryse will be on Sony’s console.
Crytek senior producer Brian Chambers has said in multiple articles that putting the former Xbox One exclusive on the PS4 was not a priority. In an interview with Gaming Bolt back on September 19th, Chambers said that they’re focused on the PS4 title, Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age.
The PS4 has gained a large user base in a short time and CRYTEK will develop titles for it the near future, such as HUNT: Horrors of the Gilded Age. Currently there is no announcement regarding RYSE coming to PS4.
That slightly changed in an interview on Tuesday with Worlds Factory. There was still no announcement, but they were “open to the new opportunities.”
We’re always open to new opportunities for our franchises, although for the moment we have our focus firmly on bringing Ryse to PC players, as well as the ongoing development of our other IP’s: Warface, Arena of Fate and Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age.
One thing to note is that Chambers never denies a port on the PS4.
Crytek dilemma
It’s been a rough summer for Crytek. The UK studios closed shipping multiple projects to other areas. The USA studio in Texas downsized, but sources close to the situation said that many quit and moved on to other work after not getting paid in late June.
Crytek is clearly in financial trouble, and CEO Cevat Yerli has been public about his disappointment in Ryse sales on Xbox One. That likely forced their hand to port the game on PC, and you can bet that they’ll be looking to bring the game elsewhere. Yerli is not only saying that a potential sequel is still coming, but it will be on multiple platforms when the install base is right.
Why hasn’t it happened yet?
Here’s why it’s not so easy to put Ryse on PS4. We already know that it’s easy to port games between PC and Xbox One because they both use DirectX. Due to financial struggles, Crytek probably doesn’t have the resources necessary to port the game over. There was obviously a deal with Microsoft to make it exclusive, but that likely has expired by now since the game released back on Friday on PC.
Perhaps when some of Crytek’s other projects release they’ll be able to have enough money to port over Ryse to PS4. Obviously it won’t be a direct port, but expect some sort of “Director’s Cut” or package that has all the DLC. Throwing it on the PS4 shortly before the release of a sequel would be a good idea.
Once Crytek has the resources, there’s simply too much money on the table not to put Ryse on PS4 in some form.
