Footage of Call of Duty: Roman Wars Reportedly Emerges

Featuring first and third-person combat.

By Alex Osborn

Call of Duty could have gone in a very different direction a few years ago, as footage of a Roman-inspired take on Activision's popular franchise has reportedly surfaced.

GamesRadar got ahold of some footage of an early build of the game, titled Call of Duty: Roman Wars. According to the outlet, Activision was looking to experiment with the series back in 2008, and was taking pitches from various developers. At that time, Skylanders and Guitar Hero developer Vicarious Visions started work on Roman Wars, which centered around Julius Caesar's tenth legion.

The game would have featured both first and third-person gameplay, where players would take on various roles, including officers, archers and grunts. Additionally, Roman Wars would have been similar in tone to films like 300 and Gladiator and taken place across a wide variety of locales, including the sea, the plains and the forest.

A single level was created and based on the Battle of Alesia. In it, players could engage in direct sword-and-shield combat or opt for a ranged approach by firing off arrows from a tower. Catapults could be used as another method of attack, and ridable elephants were featured as the game's "tank" equivalent.

While the bulk of the level employs a third-person perspective with an over-the-shoulder style like Gears of War, it also features a first-person coliseum section that used a fighting system similar to the combat found in the Condemned games.

Had Activision moved forward with the project, the game would have released in 2013 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with potential next-gen ports for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. However, the publisher was reportedly reluctant to attach the Call of Duty branding to the game because it was so different. As such, the project was eventually scrapped and Activision instead went with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

We've reached out to Activision for comment and will update this story when we receive a response. For more on the project, check out the footage above and read GamesRadar's full report.

This year, the popular FPS franchise is making its way into space with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. For our thoughts on the series' next installment, check out IGN's E3 2016 impressions.

Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter and subscribe to him on YouTube.

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