From quickly pausing, I notice in that scene where Marius gets knocked on his ass by some Barbarian that two other barbarians appear to be holding someone hostage. It seems Marius is fighting for dear life to save someone's life who is trapped right in front of him, but that guy appears a little too much for him.
Not sure why I continue wasting time on you, but this will be my last post where I even bother, because you sir are on a mission, one largely based on comparisons you already know are flawed or manipulated, and I don't have the patience to keep going back and forth on that kind of crap when I see quite clearly what's being done.
First - There are big framerate drops in the E3 footage. Don't give me some nonsense about it being a shitty encoded video, because if that's your excuse, then you're suggesting the video used at Microsoft's E3 press conference is a horribly encoded video, because that's exactly what shows the huge framerate drops at specific parts, especially towards the second half of the video. This isn't some online video I'm watching over a stream, or some badly encoded video I downloaded. This is the HD spike tv footage of Microsoft showing Ryse to the audience at their press briefing that is still saved on my DVR, and that I'm watching right now on my tv. This is the official TV broadcast of the press briefing I'm watching, not that broadcast re-encoded and then put online. Digital Foundry also pointed out the big framerate drops in the E3 footage. The new footage I've seen doesn't display such serious framerate issues. It's much more stable, even if that latest gameplay footage, before this story trailer, showcased some slight tearing. The performance was clearly better than the E3 build, something I'd glad take over what I saw at E3.
There were times when the E3 footage was solid or even perfect, but others when it had bad and obvious drops that would be highly distracting when trying to play it. It may not fit with your intended goal to acknowledge the flaws of the earlier media for this game, because that makes it harder to crow about downgrades that haven't happened, but the game was by no means perfect at E3. The newest footage shown displays much improved framerate as well as better visuals overall. And far be it from me to question your motivations, but that crappy screengrab you posted was heavily darkened, much darker from how the actual game appears. Why is that? That's why I wonder whether you purposely took some crappy screengrab that isn't actually representative of shadows at all, but more so of a mixture of more subtle shadows with a greatly darkened image overall, or just plain bad footage. Watching the press briefing footage now there is nowhere close to such an extreme change in lighting or shadow coverage when they go under the shields as that image implies, which is why I call bogus on that screen grab, and unfortunately nothing you can say will convince me otherwise, because I can see it for myself. The shadows that do appear are much more subtle in the E3 footage when they go under the shields, and that same look is more closely reflected by the screen grab of the new footage, not that screen grab from the old version of the game. What you posted approaches very close to pitch black. I'm curious if you were the one that did that screen grab, or if you got it from elsewhere, but wherever you got it, it doesn't reflect the game at all.
The fact that the E3 footage doesn't so drastically obscure the face of the main character, or so much of the armor's details during shield shadow coverage is all the proof I need of the intended purpose behind that screen grab. They want to show off the performance capture during that moment. It's one of the things Crytek highlights, and yet that screengrab almost entirely obscures the main character's face? Did Crytek screw up? Or is the screen grab screwed up? I go with the screen grab. Now, carry on if you will, but I've said as much as I will say on this matter. Go search for more downgrades.