What goes on within huge teams of artists, developers, and managers? What are the ups and downs of game development? What challenges are associated with a new generation of hardware and graphics? Revelations of Ryse is a short series that aims to provide an inside look at the development, teams, and planning of Crytek’s Xbox One release title Ryse: Son of Rome, due November 22^nd 2013.

Yannick Boucher is one of the Project Managers for Ryse. Games have always been his biggest passion, and with a funny twist of fate his hometown of Montreal became one of the main game development hubs in the world, paving the way for his videogame career. He then joined Crytek in 2012 because he wanted to be part of a team that really pushes the limits of quality in their games.

PAX Prime 2013, one of North America’s great gaming events, took place from August 30^th to September 2^nd this year in Seattle; Crytek’s Xbox One exclusive Ryse: Son of Rome was on show to let players experience the game in its full glory right before its launch this fall.

Impressive visuals and an immersive gaming experience have always been driving forces behind Crytek’s games; Crysis, Warface, and the upcoming Ryse: Son of Rome rely heavily on beautiful environments, characters, and creatures created within the CryENGINE®3. One of the key roles in ensuring the aesthetic quality of the game is that of the Art Director. For Ryse, this is Patrick Hanenberger, who recently joined Crytek after an exciting career in the entertainment industry.

“I have always been an avid gamer,” says Patrick, who has played on almost all consoles since childhood, starting with the Commodore 64. “I was always using my imagination, with drawing and building sets, so I developed a great interest in art and design as well. It took me a couple of years to get into the entertainment industry though, since there were very little schools that offered that specific sort of education. Instead I studied Industrial and Graphic Design at the University of Michigan (later also at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena), during which I did several internships – most notably at Pixar Animation Studios, where I worked on The Incredibles and eventually fell in love with CG animation. CG movie making is the best because you get to create everything from scratch. So after finishing school I got a job at DreamWorks Animation, where I worked on movies such as Over the Hedge, Bee Movie, Monsters versus Aliens, and Rise of the Guardians, on which I was the Production Designer.”

With Comic-Con - the world’s largest pop culture convention - now underway, Microsoft Studios and Crytek have unleashed new details about the pivotal characters players will encounter in “Ryse: Son of Rome,” the upcoming Xbox One action title launching alongside the system this November. During a special Comic-Con panel, Director of Cinematics Peter Gornstein and Producers Michael Read and Justin Robey revealed new storyline information, screenshots and artwork depicting the characters, demoed the custom SmartGlass application and discussed the process of writing the story of Ryse and developing the groundbreaking cinematic performance capture technology featured in the game.

Crytek’s breathtaking new action-adventure game, Ryse: Son of Rome, was revealed to audiences at the E3 games expo in Los Angeles today as an Xbox One exclusive launch title. Featured during Microsoft’s E3 press conference, Ryse was shown off in a live gameplay demo and will also be playable by E3 attendees.

The game casts players as Marius Titus, a soldier in the Roman army who must embark on a brutal journey to defend the Empire’s honor and seek revenge for the murder of his family. Utilizing the power of Crytek’s CryENGINE®, the game promises to further enhance Crytek’s reputation for creating groundbreaking interactive experiences, and will also work in conjunction with Kinect for Xbox One to offer new possibilities for immersive gameplay.