Activision tried to do something different with Call of Duty a few years ago – one of the potential results could have been Roman Wars, according to GamesRadar.

Vicarious Visions, who have never worked on Call of Duty (and they have been focusing on Skylanders ever since), started to work on a different approach to Call of Duty in 2008. In Call of Duty: Roman Wars, players could have been able to take control of Julius Caesar in first-person swordfights and such. Focusing on the Battle of Alesia, the devs made a quick, one-level prototype on Unreal Engine, which had horses, elephant riding, and catapults.

Roman Wars had two camera angles: the third-person perspective would have been similar to Gears of War, while the first-person segments could have been dubbed as gladiator battles, and the combat system would have also been inspired by Condemned: Criminal Origins, as that 2005 game had an excellent melee combat.

Caesar’s Tenth Legion was turned off by Activision, because they thought it didn’t fit the Call of Duty brand, resulting in the game’s cancellation. Roman Wars would have launched in Autumn 2013 on PS3, and X360 – unfortunately, that timeframe would have hurt Activision, as the Xbox One had one launch title similar to Roman Wars: Ryse Son of Rome. Instead, Activision went with Sledgehammer Games’ Advanced Warfare concept, and we could say that the rest is history…

There’s another twist to the story, though! The gameplay below is from a later build. After some members had left Activision, they re-pitched the concept to Ubisoft simply as Roman Wars…