Immortals: Fenyx Rising Hands-on – How It Stands Out From Zelda’s Shadow

Immortals: Fenyx Rising is ambitious and shameless. This Ubisoft title comes out on December 3 for almost every platform you can imagine: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X / S, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Stadia and PC. It’s a great open-world action RPG with a colorful land inspired by Greek mythology to explore. He also borrows from The Legend of Zelda: A Breath of the Wild with no regrets.

But to be honest, I don’t really care. Because Breath of the Wild rules, and more games should be more alike. Also, after playing an hour of Immortals: Fenyx Rising through the Parsec cloud streaming service, I can say that Immortals is not a total scam. It’s impossible to play the game without thinking about Zelda, but you’re adding enough of new or different to stand out.

Jump up superstar

A lot of this has to do with the way Fenyx moves. For Breath of the Wild, it felt strange that Link could jump. But his Breath of the Wild jump is more of a glorified jump, anyway. Breath of the Wild focuses on many things: exploration, action, and puzzle solving. Platforms are not a concern.

Fenyx, however, feels much more agile. It has a spring in its stride that is missing from Link’s feet. You can jump a decent height and you can control how high or far you jump depending on how long you press the button. It gives Immortals a 3D platforming flair, and the designers take advantage of it. You still come across a lot of Zelda-like puzzles. You even have a magnetic ability that comes directly from Breath of the Wild. But many challenges will also test your jumping skills.

I love platform games in 3D. If you were going to add anything to the Breath of the Wild formula to get my attention, this is it. It also doesn’t have weapon degradation, so if you’re one of the (wrong) people hating that in Breath of the Wild, don’t worry.

Above: Puzzles galore.

Image Credit: Ubisoft

Do not make me laugh

There is another key area where Immortals differs from Breath of the Wild: humor. Sure, Zelda has goofy characters and lighthearted moments, but it’s a pretty straightforward fantasy story. Immortals is presented as a complete comedy. Zeus and Prometheus tell the story, and you’ll hear their arguments and jokes throughout the game. At one point, Zeus hijacks the story so that a monster that Fenyx is about to fight is a giant abomination. Prometheus takes the reins and describes the monster as a lovable little pet.

I’m less convinced of this departure from the style of Breath of the Wild. I don’t mind the humor in my games, but Immortals is rarely as funny as it thinks it is. A bad joke here or there would be nice, but Ubisoft bombards you with voice work. In fact, that’s another part of my demo that I’m not thrilled with. It has too much history. I was getting tired of the scenes and the dialogue. Breath of the Wild is a fairly quiet game. Hell, it almost has very little history. Immortals can go to the other extreme.

I should point out that I only played for the first hour of the game. There is a possibility that the story will soften a bit and be pushed aside in favor of player discovery the further you go into your adventure. Anyway I hope so.

Above: The big bad is actually quite big.

Image Credit: Ubisoft

What I played was fun enough to overcome my distaste for humor, anyway. I have criticized Ubisoft games in the past for being “map games”. They are open world experiences where you spend a lot of time looking at icons on your map, then you walk to where they tell you to go and then do some kind of activity.

You still spend a decent amount of time walking towards the icons in Immortals, but the discovery process is more interesting. In order for most chests, activities, or other hot spots to appear on your map and compass, you need to explore them first. This is best done by finding a high perch. Then go into a first person view and select the areas of interest. It’s kind of like what Assassin’s Creed does, but it’s more organic. In Assassin’s Creed, you simply scale any tall tower the game prompts you to do and then rewards you by filling your map with icons. Here, you can choose the point of view you want, and then you still have to find those access points yourself.

A whole new world

I spent most of my time in my demo playing through the campaign, which introduced me to Fenyx’s arsenal of equipment and the kinds of activities I’d find in the open world. As with Breath of the Wild, I imagine that I will have more fun when I am wandering the world and discovering my own fun.

Immortals will never be able to escape comparisons to Breath of the Wild. I mean, if you didn’t want that, you’re just to blame. But you shouldn’t rule it out. Maybe it’s a clone, but it seems to be a good one. Heck, cloning is not the word. Fenyx’s increased mobility and jumping prowess is enough to make the Immortals feel like a worthwhile twist on the Breath of the Wild formula.