Citing multiple sources, GamesRadar reports that the project was known as Call of Duty: Roman Wars and was in development at Vicarious Visions late in the previous decade. However, it could have taken us all the way back to the times of the Roman Empire. Unlike the traditionally first-person Call Of Duty games, Roman Wars would’ve had a third-person camera (a unnamed source compares it to Gears Of War) and a lot of sword-based combat. Vicarious Visions has hardly been short of work since, lending its hand to the Skylanders series and now working on the Crash Bandicoot remaster that’s slated for release on PlayStation 4 in 2017. Basically we were following Julius Caesar’s Tenth Legion – his special forces during those times – and we were doing a one level prototype based on the Battle of Alesia. And it was going to stay true to the Call of Duty franchise in that jumping around, playing those different characters and getting a whole feel of the overall battle during those times. At certain points, according to the developer, players would have even been able to play as Caesar himself. The goal was to take out archers, and the player could have accomplished that objective by using catapults, siege towers or “war elephants” – which the player could ride as they trampled enemies on the battlefield. When Activision did eventually open the property up to a third developer, it went for Sledgehammer – which gave us Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
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I really thought an ancient warfare game would do well, re-skinned with the Call of Duty engine. Vicarious Visions then pitched Roman Wars to Ubisoft, but they too turned it down.
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In recent years, one of the chief complaints aimed at the Call of Duty franchise has been its reluctance to move away from futuristic, science-fiction settings.
