Immortals Fenyx Rising

Immortals Fenyx Rising is fortunate in that it does not suffer from an identity crisis.

During the process of covering and reviewing this game, “Breath of the Wild” will dance across the page of many writers’ work. It’s unavoidable, in the vein of comparing third-person difficulty with Dark Souls. Even having only played a few hours of 2017’s critically acclaimed game, I acknowledge there are more than a few ideas borrowed. Even the developers at Ubisoft Quebec recognize the game’s impact.

Immortals Fenyx Rising wears that inspiration proudly on its sleeve rather than weighing it down. While it should not be ignored, to funnel critique solely through that lens would be reductive. Despite the main villain nestled at the center of the map and despite the ability to knock down health-restoring fruit from a tree by smacking it with a weapon, Immortals Fenyx Rising feels unique while also feeling familiar. Massive open-worlds are not a departure for Ubisoft, neither are absurd characters or experimental mechanics. This may be the publisher’s first new IP in years but it rests comfortably in its current stable, giving players another sandbox ripe with possibility.

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Rather than peeking at Nintendo when mulling over what exactly Immortals Fenyx Rising is, simply look to 2018’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the developer’s most recent game. Though it was wholly an Assassin’s Creed game, Odyssey was also a celebration of Ancient Greece, from its society to its obsession with the gods. The research Ubisoft Quebec did for the game allowed for the roots of Immortals Fenyx Rising to take hold.

A fondness for Greek mythology is understandable for any game developer. These powerful, fallible deities were deemed responsible for every facet of existence. From the weather to the construction of a harp, the Greek gods crafted an entire world or whatever else the storyteller felt appropriate. Like any religion, the truth and purpose behind these figures were subject to change or be expanded upon as the centuries passed. Cartoons may paint Hercules in a favorable light of bravado but God of War turned him into an oafish man-baby that you wanted to punch. Zeus might be ruler of the gods but he’s also a pretty bad person when you take into account all the misery he bestowed on people just because he wanted to. Suffice it to say, the roster of Greek myth is a full one, not just in the stories that can be told but how those stories can be told.

Typhon has broken free from his bonds underneath the mountain that Zeus threw on top of him. The evil Titan seeks to destroy his captor and usurp the throne of Olympos to reshape the world in any way he sees fit. Players awake on the Golden Isle as Fenyx, a storyteller and shield bearer whose ship crashed into this bountiful world of the gods. Everyone on the island, including Fenyx’s brother, has been turned to stone. After following the trail of a mysterious stranger, Fenyx meets an Oracle who speaks of a hero that will save Olympos. Guess what? It’s probably you.

Good versus evil is a fairly standard trope that goes a long way. In Typhon, players have demonic monster with lots of eyes and a tentacle arm that growls from the center of the map. Fenyx is a hopeful presence that is at first enamored by the gods of all the stories she has told but soon begins to see cracks in their legendary veneer. Where Immortals Fenyx Rising strives to be different is in the telling of the story. The game is narrated by Zeus, the ruler of the gods and Prometheus, a Titan who was chained to a mountain by his cousin… Zeus. Seeking help to defeat Typhon, Zeus agrees to a bet Prometheus has made that a mortal will defeat Typhon. If Prometheus’ prediction comes true, Zeus will finally free him from having his liver constantly eaten until the end of time.

These dueling narrators account for an incredible amount of charm and wit injected into the game. Prometheus acts as a serious storyteller, giving a dramatic air to the events of the game. Players will hear of Fenyx’s heroic deeds recounted by the gruff voice of Prometheus in a way that would make one’s chest swell with pride. In contrast, Zeus acts as Prometheus’ direct foil, taunting him for the serious tone or carrying on for too long. During cutscenes, the two will interrupt each other and, for a bit of visual comedy, may cause the action in a cutscene to change.

The constant bickering over on screen action may be a turn off for some but the narration truly works. Part of this amounts to Zeus and Prometheus not remaining static characters throughout the course of the game. For the first several hours players will hear Zeus chastise Prometheus or mock him while Prometheus calls out the poor choices Zeus has made. After players begin chipping away at story quests and see what has befallen the Golden Isle, Zeus’ tone changes. He sounds more self-aware and less prone to making light of a dire situation. Prometheus becomes less of a scolding parent and more a stern brother.

One element of the player’s journey to defeat Typhon is finding four of the Golden Isle’s lost gods. Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus have gone missing in the game’s four main biomes. Along the way, a novel’s worth of Greek mythology is offered to the player. Climbing up to a noteworthy landmark or encountering a great beast may trigger Prometheus to spin a tale. As the game goes on, players are given a very colorful history of Greek mythology that doesn’t try to hide the fact that some pretty atrocious things happened to mortal and immortal alike.

Ubisoft clings to humor like Fenyx clings to the side of a cliff. Thankfully, the developer never loses too much stamina before regaining its footing. Humor is ridiculously difficult, especially in gaming. Merging gameplay and a tight narrative that relies on jokes is a feat rarely accomplished. Games that lean mostly into humor often drown in one-liners and bad jokes. By having full narrative arcs, Immortals Fenyx Rising isn’t always trying to deliver a laugh. And look, not every joke in this game landed for me and I expect it will be that way for most of the game’s adult audience. Yet the playful nature of the world and tendency for every character to take jabs at each other maintains a lighthearted air. I laughed or chuckled a lot and remained thankful that the humor was trying to be more universal than capturing the essence of a meme that happened a year or more ago when the script was being written.

Having a lot of humor in Immortals Fenyx Rising might sound like a way for players to remove themselves from any sense of urgency to the threat of Typhon. Really, though, that criticism can be directed at any game that gives players near ultimate freedom. In The Witcher 3, I spent tens of hours forgetting about the main path and relished the side quests that delivered bloody drama or a tender moment. Immortals Fenyx Rising is content with filling its vibrantly colored world of gods with tragic tales and lampooning them with an off-color comment from Zeus. After all, he’s a crude god.

Players will begin to see how self-aware the narrative becomes as Fenyx starts to peel back the layers of the gods they’ve idolized. Not only have they fled Typhon’s wrath, they’ve fled personal flaws or issues. Fenyx at times questions how great and powerful these gods often are, while the player, through Prometheus’ narration, will often see them for monsters (See what I did there?). As fun a romp as the game may be over all, the strength of its story lies in those weaving narrative bits that players are rewarded with while exploring. The jokes and banter give further color to a game that would actually feel a lot more empty if players were just wandering from one puzzle or encounter to the next.

Those next encounters are one of the ways that Immortals Fenyx Rising becomes its own unique Ubisoft adventure. This is not a world that is based in a tangible reality. It’s a fantasy world full of monstrous creatures and a variety of puzzles. The game is much more open ended than similar titles because most of what players are doing aren’t actually quests.

Immortals Fenyx Rising probably has the least amount of quests I’ve completed in an open world game in a few years. Most world events or main quests are contained to small areas or are found in the Vaults of Tartaros. The Vaults are littered throughout the Golden Isle and act as various kinds of challenge rooms that reward players with upgrade materials, armor, or progression. Presenting either a combat challenge or a puzzle, players dive into the Vaults and progress through a series of checkpoints in this ethereal, celestial realm compromised of interconnected floating platforms. Combat challenges are fairly standard, asking players to best a few waves of different enemies encountered across the world.

Puzzles are unique beasts that take many forms. Early on, players acquire gauntlets that allow them to lift up objects magically or move around heavy objects. Boxes and balls need to be lifted and moved into pressure plates that will cause other platforms to move and open up a new section of a challenge. Eventually, physics-based puzzles arrive where players may need to knock down walls by blasting objects with air vents. Laser fields will need to be dodged and flown past while boxes need to be reshuffled to create makeshift stairs.

It’s because I enjoyed the frequency and increasing challenge of Immortals Fenyx Rising‘s puzzles that I lamented the fact that an overwhelming majority of the puzzles only require the gauntlets to complete. More difficult Vaults and challenges need other godly powers to complete but these are much more rare.

The Golden Isle is a beautiful, stylized world that makes each new inch a joy to take in. But the real accomplishment is just how many challenges there are for players to complete in such small pieces of real estate. At any time–though especially cool when climbing each biome’s massive statue–players can trigger Fenyx’s Far Sight ability that highlights and marks any point of interest. Whether a chest, Vault, piece of ambrosia, or a puzzle, these can be marked from nearly any distance. On the PlayStation 5, the DualSense rumbles faster the closer players get to a point that can be marked and pulling R2 too early is met with resistance from the haptic triggers. It’s a small touch but nice one and feels a bit less awkward than the resistance met when pulling back on the bow.

I would spend several minutes marking objects with Far Sight just because I love having a world map covered in icons that I can eventually mark off. On the map or in Far Sight players can also mark anything they wish with different colored pins as an added means of identifying a point of interest.

So often players will find themselves heading towards one objective or another and be met with something they may have missed. In one small section I fought against a group of enemies guarding a marked chest only to be met with a navigation challenge that asked me to jump and fly over tall pillars. After reaching the goal I noticed the entrance to a Vault in front of me and another navigation challenge to the right.

As a whole, these interconnected challenges and puzzles may seem disparate but are anything but. Immortals Fenyx Rising doesn’t force the players to do any of these things, it asks them by triggering that spark of adventure. That chest may seem out of the way but it might just give enough of a reward to upgrade Fenyx a small enough amount to take on a harder challenge. That carrot on the stick is so very simple but disguises itself fairly well. Hardly any puzzle or any fight overstays its welcome, meaning they are easily digestible and perfect for those who can only play for a smaller sessions.

Typhon’s demise may be a noble deed but Fenyx has a long way to go before getting to that point. Thankfully, the combat in Immortals Fenyx Rising starts out simple and begins to deviate into complexity when appropriate. There are three weapons in the game: the bow, the axe, and the sword. Nothing else, no item durability. The sword is used to execute quick combo strikes but does less damage than the axe. Players use the axe to build up an enemy’s stun meter which, when full, temporarily stuns the enemy and causes them to take increased damage. The box is mainly used for puzzles but can do in a pinch for headshot damage.

Fighting against a number of mythical opponents, players slowly get into a rhythm by learning attack patterns. Players need to dodge away from red attacks and parry other attacks. Parrying at the last moment builds up a large chunk of stun damage, so it’s helpful not to dodge every attack as most enemies require too many hits from the axe to be stunned. It took me quite awhile to get comfortable with combat firstly because I played the game on hard but also because I relied far too much on the sword and dodging.

Understanding how larger enemies operate becomes crucial in Immortals Fenyx Rising. A player’s first test will likely come from the minotaur and its massive health pool. Players need to figure out how to move out of the way when it charges and allow it to bash against a hard surface to temporarily daze the minotaur and fill up its stun meter. Flying enemies are best tackled by upgrading the gauntlets to either pull them towards Fenyx or launch her into the air for an airborne attack. 

The pantheon of monsters has a nice variety and players well-versed in Greek mythology should recognize most of the familiar snarling faces. But the more ferocious battles in the game often lack a certain spark. After making progress for a certain god, that specific area will be haunted by a Wraith of a fallen soldier that is summoned by Typhon to hunt down the player for several minutes. Wraiths can only truly be defeated by going into their lair and killing a harder version of them. Named enemies also roam the world but most of them are tougher, flashier version of sword fodder.

Eventually, Fenyx becomes a one-woman (or man) army against the forces of Typhon. Players can use the various rewards earned from activities to increase Fenyx’s capabilities. Zeus’ lightning is used to gain new stamina chunks, ambrosia for health, jewels for weapon upgrades, and coins of Charon for skills. Rather than using a bloated loot system, players earn a finite number of gear that has unlockable perks that cater to specific situations. Helmet and armor levels are increased universally so players don’t need to be concerned with making too difficult of choices.

Potions to heal, restore stamina, and buff defense and offense can be crafted and improved upon using plants and fruits found in the world. As the game went on, I relied on potions a lot more often in normal fights and not just exclusively used in a pinch or against bosses. 

At first, the entire upgrade system feels like a grind as players get a sense for the Golden Isle and how it works. It takes a bit of time before Godly Powers are unlocked that further diversify combat outside of simple slashing. A massive hammer slam or a mythical upward jab of spears shave off health and allow new opportunities in combat. Here, the game’s aerial combat shines most and paying close attention reaps the greatest rewards. On the surface, it may appear simplistic and it is. But don’t let the opening hours fool you.

It may take time for players to warm up to the vast charm that Immortals Fenyx Rising offers. It is not as deep as Breath of the Wild but it feels equally rewarding to a player’s time. When players earn their wings for the first time and fly off for the unknown, they may be concerned about how fast their stamina bar drains or if they have enough health to survive against a towering cyclops. But those fears soon fade as a beautiful, sprawling world of Olympian possibility lies in wait. There is no riding down a hill on pot lids or cooking mystery foods to brave the snow. Instead, there is a rewarding sense of exploration. Over the hill there is a challenging brain teaser or a fun distraction to get lost in. 

Immortals Fenyx Rising is not an imitation of a superior product. It creates its own identity and lays the groundwork for things to come. In the future I can see new pantheons of gods with new problems to solve and more unique ways to come to a solution. But right now, we have a funny, rewarding, and compelling open world game to enjoy that sets itself apart from the crowd.