As time progresses, creators of different media whether it’s shows, movies or games, all like to have their different takes and interpretations of Greek mythology and like to put their spin on classic stories or they try to create a new story using the elements of Greek mythology. Ubisoft decided to take a different approach and add a more comedic tone to the open-world game “Immortals Fenyx Rising.”

A Myth in the Making

The story of “Immortals Fenyx Rising” revolves around a bet between the Greek God Zeus and the Greek titan Prometheus over how to save the world. At the start of the story, a monstrous creature named Typhon has defeated all of the Greek gods except for Zeus, so Zeus turns to Prometheus for help. Zeus wants Prometheus to help him fight Typhon head on, but Prometheus believes a mortal can stop Typhon, so the two make a deal. The two decide to give a mortal a chance to defeat Typhone, but if that plan doesn’t succeed, Prometheus has to go along with Zeus’ plan. As the deal is struck, Prometheus starts to narrate the journey of a mortal named Fenyx, who becomes the player’s character.

As the players plays as Fenyx, Prometheus and Zeus narrate during the story and gameplay, commenting on the characters that the player meets throughout their journey. Both narrators play off each other well, as Zeus can show off his selfish and egotistical side while Prometheus mocks Zeus for how awful he has been in the past. Zeus also calmly mentions some of the stories that he has with certain characters and some of the ruthless things he’s done as a ruler or as a father to some of these characters, which shows how cruel Zeus can really be.

Fenyx works alongside the mischievous god Hermes, who helps the player get ready to fight Typhon by assigning the player tasks. These tasks involve helping other gods who were trapped or transformed into something weak and easy to defeat by Typhon.

The dialogue between characters works decently well, as Fenyx is a big fan of the gods and goddesses such as Aphrodite, Ares and Athena. Fenyx has moments of being a big fan of the character and knowing a lot of history about them and asks question if certain things the Greek gods really did were true.

The dialogue has jokes to entertain the player, but there are moments where the jokes don’t land well, because they either don’t make sense or don’t fit the tone within the game.

The Lands of the Gods

Players are free to explore and immerse themselves in the massive, vibrant and colorful island that Fenyx lives on. The island is huge, but there’s always something to do in each part of the island, whether it’s fighting enemies, or exploring hidden areas and solving puzzles.

Fenyx’s island is divided into seven unique areas, each of which has a towering statue representing its patron Greek god that the player can climb to reveal side quests and extra tasks. With how big the island is, the game lets players fast travel to areas they’ve explored, so that they don’t have to run for long periods of time.

Players start off in Clashing Rocks, a section of the island surrounded by destroyed buildings and chunks of the island itself surrounded by bodies of water. Clashing Rocks introduces the havoc that Typhon has wrought all around the island and seeing buildings destroyed and citizens turned into stone was shocking towards Fenyx. The statue within Clashing Rocks is Hermes, the Messenger of the Gods.

The Valley of Eternal Spring, another area of the island, is full of grass, green and pink trees, as well as lakes that go across the land. There’s stone pillars where the player can look around the land from above.. The scenery in this part of the island feels beautiful to look at with how nature blooms throughout the land. The Valley of Eternal Spring is also where Aphrodite’s statue rests.

In comparison is War’s Den, where there’s a large abandoned city within it and many deserted buildings within the land as well. The land itself looks almost completely empty, filled with dried out trees, dead crops and no signs of animals life. Just like its’ name, it looks like many wars were held within War’s Den as some parts of the land looks destroyed. The statue that rests within War’s Den is the Greek god of war Ares.

There are also vaults that the player can enter either for side quests or for the main mission that have a really colorful and pretty atmosphere. This is where the player has to complete puzzles to earn rewards, or important artifacts for the main story.

Using the weapons of the Greek Gods

The gameplay starts off relatively slow, but it definitely picks up as the player progresses and gains access to more weapons and new abilities that can be upgraded, which leads to enemies being easier to defeat and creates a sense of satisfaction.

The player has the health bar that they would see in other games, but there’s also a stamina bar which is consumed when sprinting, climbing, swimming or using special abilities. Unfortunately, the stamina bar is used for almost everything, so it’s best to use that bar wisely when climbing or swimming as it could lead to the player falling or drowning. The stamina bar becomes more important in fights as the game progresses, as certain weapons and abilities start to use it up as well. The health bar and stamina bar can be enhanced by adding more bars to them.

The player’s main weapons are a sword, an axe, and a bow. Players can search for different variations of these weapons and use them to gain the upper hand on enemies. These weapons could provide upgrades such as stronger attacks or stronger stun damage. There is also different skins that the player can earn for weapons such as axes, swords and wings as well. The player can earn other types of gear to travel faster such as wings and special boots.

There’s also armor that can also benefit the player with the same sort of advantages that weapons would give them. Both weapons and armor can be upgraded to increase defense and attack and even unlock new abilities once a certain level is achieved for the types of weapons. Upgrades do have a cost, which comes in the form of different colored crystals. Different colored crystals can be obtained by doing almost anything in the game, whether it’s interacting with the environment, defeating enemies or opening chests.

There are abilities to help the player fight against enemies known as ‘Godly Powers’ where the player uses abilities that the gods would use. There are abilities such as Apollo’s Arrows where the player can control the arrows in mid-flight, Herakles’s Strength lets the player can pick up and throw heavy objects and Phosphor’s Attack where a bird helps the player to attack and stun enemies. All of these and other Godly Powers use up stamina, so it’s best to try to use these abilities wisely.

There are also skills that can be upgraded to make traveling and combat easier. These skill upgrades can range from swimming or climbing faster or extending combos with certain weapons.

Both skills and Godly Powers are upgraded using coins that the player can look for and earn by completing certain puzzles or side quests around the island.

The player can upgrade almost everything, whether it’s weapons to even the amount of potions they can hold.

There are also ‘Blessings’ where the player can earn the blessing of a Greek God three times and each blessing making the player stronger in some way. One blessing can bring the player back to life, but has a long cooldown, while another can make arrows stronger, but they would need to be charged up a bit.

Unfortunately, a lot of the upgrades here can be a big time investment once the upgrading process starts and can lead to more of a time investment as the prices for each upgrade starts to get drastically expensive.

Another downside is that a lot of the upgrades can only be acquired within one small part of the map, so players have to fast travel back and forth if they want to upgrade certain things.

A Hero’s Journey

At first, the movement of the game feels a bit strange, but it eventually starts to feel better and more enjoyable once the player gets their hands on wings and special boots early on in the game.

Unfortunately, the controls when it comes to climbing are a bit buggy and hard to work with sometimes. Climbing can feel really slow and often times the controls can lead to the player climbing on stuff they didn’t mean to or getting stuck for a short time. There can be times where it’s hard to run when holding an object over the player’s head as well.

Fighting the enemies and mixing up the weapons you are given can make the game feel very fun to play and add some replayability.

Ubisoft also allowed the option for players to sneak up on an enemy and do a stealth attack, which does a lot of damage and can make the battles short and easy. These stealth attacks can be a bit tough to do as the enemies can be alerted and prevent these attacks from happening. It’s great that Ubisoft included these stealth attacks, since they can make the battles short and easy.

Beating mini-bosses around the map can feel very satisfying as some are very challenging and may take a while to beat if the player is not strong enough to take them on. The mini-bosses can give good rewards most of the time as they usually give a weapon variant or a different look for certain weapons. These mini-bosses can be found by exploring the island or progressing in the story.

However, the mini-bosses are contained in an area and if the player leaves that area while fighting, the mini-boss regains all of its health. Most of the time, the game will warn the player that they are about to exit that area, but there are moments where there is no warning and the mini-boss ends up regaining all of their health back.

There are many side quests and small tasks to do that can be really fun and satisfying to complete and even give the player really good loot. Vault quests are very interesting as the puzzles are fun to do and the bosses and enemies can be difficult to fight against. But in the end, this can be satisfying for the player once they complete it and earn additional stamina bars. There are more rewards to be found if the player looks around and sees an extra puzzle to work on or sees it hiding behind a building or a tower.

As the game progresses, it can start to get repetitive due to the same enemies reappearing, but with more health and a different color scheme. That said, the combat is still fun to play with, especially against mini-bosses as they are usually stronger enemies that provide better rewards.

Most bosses are strong and some offer variety once the player fights them, leading to fights that can offer a lot of enjoyment. There’s bosses that can turn the player into stone and slow them down and there’s others or others that have multiple heads that can slam into the player or spit out puddles of poison at them.

The environment is very interactive and it doesn’t really feel empty, despite how big the island is. Most of the bushes, trees and rocks can be destroyed and even give the player resources to upgrade items or plants that can be used to create potions.

There have been a few bugs encountered within the game such as issues with climbing or certain objects getting stuck. There’s also very few instances where the player can end up falling off the map entirely which leads to the player having to go back to their last loading time or to their last save, but this is a rare occurrence.

Final Thoughts

David’s Score: 7.5/10 (PS4)

“Immortals Fenyx Rising” is a unique take on the world of Greek mythology with how comedic the story can be and how it shines through the characters dialogue and funny interactions with each other. The environment can be breathtaking to look at once the player stands on top of a statue or a tall building and sees how colorful and unique the environments are from each other. The side quests and puzzles are interesting to do, and the weapons and abilities are really fun to use. Unfortunately, the enemies can get repetitive at times, movement that can be hard to play with some times and very few bugs that can sometimes occur. “Immortals Fenyx Rising” is still a game that’s worth picking up for those that are looking for an adventure.

This game was reviewed by David Chavez, playing on the PS4. The game code for this review was provided by Ubisoft.