By using a skill known as Far Sight (pressing down on the right analogue stick), you can survey the land and reveal certain places of interest. Outside of the main quests, Immortals Fenyx Rising offers you so much to do. Whenever you encounter a God, you’re instantly drawn in to their history, and the voice-acting is constantly top notch. Ares has become a chicken, Aphrodite a tree, Hephaistos an automaton, and Athena a child. Each of the Gods has a unique story in the way it relates to Zeus, their father, and you learn so much about who they are and how they came to be. You might have to solve a puzzle, then fight some enemies, then dive into a Vault to recover their essence, but it always mixes it up so no two paths are the same. Each God is tied to a particular area, and after scaling their statue, you embark on a quest line that has you completing varied tasks that never follow a generic pattern. Your main objective is to restore the essence of the Gods you encounter. It has lighter moments, but there’s also a moving tale about a father’s realisation that he might not have been the dad of the year. The humour lies sweetly at the heart of Immortals Fenyx Rising. They help to fill in the story, react to what Fenyx is doing, and provide some genuinely funny moments. Throughout your adventure, Zeus and Prometheus act as narrators. Jeffrey Yohalem has written one of the finest scripts of the year, if not the decade. Hair colour, their voice, facial hair, and tattoos can all be chosen before you head out on your adventure.Įveryone is going to have their own version of Fenyx, and mine was a girl with a big heart and purple hair. You get to customise your hero to be male or female, or non-binary if you so wish. When it seems like all hope is lost, an unlikely hero called Fenyx embarks on a quest to save Greece and destroy Typhon once and for all. Greek heroes like Odysseus and Herakles have been corrupted, and almost everyone else has been turned to stone. The Gods have been cursed, their essence lost, and their fates doomed.
The story is centred around the re-emergence of Typhon, the most powerful Titan of all time. The writing is excellent, and the titular character of Fenyx is so loveable it hurts.
Whilst there are tons of similarities with BotW, Immortals Fenyx Rising is a phenomenal action-adventure game featuring loads of intricate and inspiring puzzles, superb combat, and one of the most thrilling stories of 2020. Now we’ve addressed how both games are kindred spirits, it’s time to talk about why Fenyx Rising should be a shoe-in for everybody’s game of the year lists. You can pin locations on your map with multicoloured markers, move metal spheres with a magnetism-like ability, and tame horses whilst exploring the open world. You can’t fly but you can glide after finishing one of your first main quests, and the Gods will give you Hero Blessings. Climbing, swimming, and running drains stamina bars which you can increase by completing Vaults (*cough* not Shrines).
Whether that gets under your skin or not, you’ll encounter so many things in Ubisoft Quebec’s latest epic adventure that feel almost identical to the legendary masterpiece. Immortals Fenyx Rising is very similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You know, the one stomping its feet and blowing its trunk, craving for attention. There’s no point ignoring the elephant in the room.