Immortals Fenyx Rising

To better understand Immortals Fenyx Rising – the action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft about a Greek warrior named Fenyx, who is trying to stop a Titan from ruling the world – it’s important to compare it to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This is not because of their many superficial similarities – as it blatantly borrows many ideas, mechanics, and even the general art style from Nintendo’s behemoth – but because of their stark differences in structure. At a first glance, they may appear to be very much alike, but the core of both games couldn’t be more distinct.

Breath of the Wild is all about the exploration of a fully realized post-apocalyptic fantasy world. It’s about discovery, curiosity, and experimentation. Despite having many of the same elements, such as dozens of shrines – here called vaults – that function as small puzzle challenges, Fenyx Rising is about none of that. It’s still an open-world game packed full of things to do, but the way the player is pushed to go about it couldn’t be more different.

It would be easy to blame the ability to fill the map with icons for that. In Fenyx Rising, by using an ability called “far sight,” we can scout the map for places of interest, which are then marked on the map with an icon. Here, the issue is that we don’t have to be able to see the place of interest for it to be marked on the map, but merely look at its general direction: it doesn’t matter if there are buildings or mountains on the way, if we just glance at the direction of where a vault is supposed to be – even if we don’t know it to be there – the icon is assigned to the place. This means that we can just turn the camera around blindlessly wherever we are and clutter the vicinity with icons. But here’s the thing: there’s nothing stopping the player from ignoring this ability altogether and so leave the map free of this enormous list of chores to do.

What really impacts exploration in Fenyx Rising – maybe even suppressing it entirely – is a much subtler thing than an overabundance of icons on a map: it’s the lack of negative space. Much like most Ubisoft games, Fenyx Rising seems very afraid that the player will get bored if they are not given something to do every second, and so never lets them rest. If far sight can clutter the map with icons, it’s only because the map is indeed cluttered with activities, be them treasure chests, pushing-block puzzles, challenges, or optional boss fights.

Negative space, such as empty fields to traverse, is crucial for making a map feel like a living, breathing world – it’s a subtle, but important piece of realism that affects the ambiance of a world, how it functions and feels. In other words, Fenyx Rising’s map doesn’t feel like a proper world because it’s not structured like one: it feels like a theme park, a digital playground where you are surrounded by activities on every side. Look to your right and there’s a puzzle, to your left there’s a boss fight, right in front of you there’s yet another puzzle, and, at your back, there’s the vault you just cleared.

Exploration entails the existence of the unknown. We explore to discover, to find out what is hidden, to uncover secrets. There’s no such thing as exploration when we are surrounded by the things we should “discover.” You don’t explore a theme park; you go on its rides and experience its activities: this is how Fenyx Rising is structured.

Negative space also makes points of interest stand out. We have to look out for them, to search places that look off in some way because they may guard something interesting: a building surrounded by an inconspicuous patch of forest feels important because there’s nothing like it in sight. Being unique makes a thing stand out, but in Fenyx Rising, there are hundreds of temples, all looking alike, surrounding Fenyx and rewarding the player with the same currency for an upgrade.

The reason why “far sight” in Fenyx Rising doesn’t ruin exploration it’s because there was nothing to explore, to begin with. We don’t have to climb a tall structure and spot a building that stands out in a forest to be rewarded for our discovery; we just have to run in any direction for less than a minute and we will inevitably stumble upon something that will offer a similar reward. The ability, therefore, serves only to organize our list of activities, to help us plan which rides in the theme park we want to go to next.

Therefore, judging Fenyx Rising for its lack of exploration is to miss the point of the game. It fails at being Breath of the Wild because it doesn’t try to be: Fenyx Rising is more of a theme park inspired by Breath of the Wild than anything else. So, the question becomes, does it fail or succeed at being this theme park?

First, the game indeed offers tons and tons of rides. It doesn’t want the player to get bored and is almost paranoid about it: even when we are completing a main quest, there are many optional side activities in the same area to distract us. The problem here is that some of these activities are just the same, but over and over again, and there’s just a certain number of times that we can move tiles to form a picture in a “Fresco Challenge” before the act of solving this type of puzzle gets stale.

These puzzles and challenges rarely change from one to another: the only Fresco Challenge I could find that required a different line of thinking was the one that had lasers that damaged Fenyx when they were about to move the tiles. This meant the puzzle became less about the tiles and more about how to deal with the lasers. More of these differences between the puzzles and challenges would have greatly benefited the game.

Another common challenge is called “Constellation” because it involves gathering blue orbs and putting them on a board to match the picture of a specific constellation that is in front of it. Gathering the orbs is the actual challenge – there are usually up to five of them to collect in the nearby area – but there’s a clear pattern in their design: there’s one that requires us to shoot arrows through fire to light up torches; there’s one that asks us to move a block of stone or something heavy onto a pressure plate; there’s one that is protected by enemies; there’s one that is just hidden somewhere and we have to look around blindlessly to find it; and there’s one in plain sight so we can begin to tackle the challenge without frustration. The next Constellation challenge will have up to five orbs…. and will ask us to do the same activities as listed above, with little to no change, which prevents it to feel fresh.

Challenges can be time-consuming as well, especially when we fail at them. One in a vault, for example, requires us to bring a wooden box safely through a series of corridors full of moving lasers. This requires the player to wait for a laser to pass by them and then run to the next safe segment and wait for the next laser, and so forth. But, if the last laser destroys the box, the player must return to the last checkpoint to get another one and repeat the process, waiting for the first laser to pass by, and then the second, and then the third, and so on. And if the last one gets the box again, frustration becomes just like Thanos: inevitable.

There’s a puzzle – this one not in a vault – that requires the player to move a metal block with Magnesis – sorry, Heracles Strength – up to where there’s a pressure plate that opens a window to a small maze. We must stand over this plate to activate it and throw the block through the window that opens, and then move away from the plate and use Heracles Strength to move the block through the maze until it falls down a hole. Here, we are supposed to grab the block as it falls through a specific floor of the maze and then move it rightward to complete the puzzle. If we fail at this last task, the block falls to the ground and we have to repeat the whole process from the beginning, having to grab the block and go back to the pressure plate and throw it at the window to the maze.

To make matters a lot worse, the reward for this whole ordeal can very well be just a different color to a piece of armor that the player may not find very useful. So, in other words, making the player repeat the whole puzzle after they fail the last step can be frustrating in a time-consuming sense, especially when we don’t know that the reward will be worth it.

The main issue here is that Fenyx Rising enters in contradiction with its own design. Its overall structure is tailor-made to cater to players who are easily bored, who apparently need constant dopamine hits, and so it gives them something to do at every turn. However, most of its puzzles and challenges make them lose time, asking for patience from an audience that is supposed to be defined by their lack of one.

Combat is also unbalanced. The protagonist has a light attack with a sword and a strong attack with an axe, but this strong attack is better at stunning enemies than doing raw damage. When their “stun gauge” is full, a monster gets, well, stunned for a considerable amount of time, and this is when we can unleash a fury of light attacks to end them. The problem here is that there’s a power called Are’s Fury that is quicker to use than a single swing of the axe and deals ridiculously more stun damage to everyone around Fenyx, so there’s basically no point in using the axe.

This is so overpowered that even bosses fall quickly to the same strategy: spam Are’s Fury until the protagonist is out of stamina. The boss will most certainly get stunned by this, and now it’s just a matter of spamming quick attacks – which even recover Fenyx’s stamina – until the monster gets out of the stun state. Rinse and repeat with every common enemy and boss.

Another problem with Fenyx Rising is the lack of NPCs. There’s no such thing as towns here, which impacts the pace of the game. There’s just solving puzzles and challenges and then the puzzles and challenges of the vaults, and then the fights between. We do these things over and over again no matter the area of the map we are, as they are structured in the same way, with just a different color palette (the only exception is the last one that functions as its own big challenge)

Towns are important because they not only offer a nice change of pace – a time with no puzzles or fights, just people to meet and talk to – but also the necessary context to the activities done in the nearby regions. With a quest, we are not just solving another Constellation challenge to get coins to upgrade our equipment; now we are helping a person in their struggle, even if to do that we must basically just solve another Constellation challenge. These narrative bits are important to mask the repetitive action and, if done well, can even make it memorable.

The reason there are no towns or any significant NPCs to speak of is the fact that, in the story, humanity has been turned to stone. Fenyx (we can choose their sex) is the sole survivor and they must enlist the gods of Olympus to assist them in the fight against a Titan.

Fenyx Rising attempts to be a comedy. The narrative is framed as a story being told by Prometheus to Zeus, so they will comment on everything that happens but without the creativity of something like Bastion. At first, the game will play with the idea, showing Zeus changing the appearance of an enemy Fenyx is fighting, increasing their size, to make the story Prometheus is telling more intense, but this concept is quickly abandoned.

The real problem with Fenyx Rising’s storytelling is that, even though it has just two characters talking to each other all the time, it still manages to make them bland and one-note. Fenyx Rising is a much longer game than Bastion, so their commentary can get stale: their first interaction will be like their last.

Zeus and Prometheus will frequently comment on stories of Greek mythology, poking fun at them, but the jokes are all the same. Zeus will diminish the impact, drama, and tragedy of most of the stories and characters by ridiculing everything. If Fenyx comes across a great snake monster, Zeus will talk about the time someone brought it to parties, for example. Consequently, most of these stories blend together and don’t matter in the slightest.

The tone is also all over the place. This is a comedy with talking animals and a lighthearted story, but one that is full of jokes about sex and masturbation. When a robot-like character comments on how he must use his hand to “touch things”, Zeus immediately says, “Now we’re talking,” and Prometheus reprimands him by just saying, “Zeus.” Another time, Hermes says he enjoys constantly pleasing himself and Aphrodite will comment on how stained his clothes must be. Even though joking about sex is on-point with Greek mythology, the material here is plain and repetitive.

Take Ares, for example, his introduction is great because it subverts expectations: we expect a great and fearsome warrior, but get something else entirely. But then, the subsequent scenes with the character are just the same bit, but again and again.

Finally, we have the protagonist, Fenyx. Their character arc is about confidence: they were sidelined all their life by their brother, who they thought were better than them in every way. But now they must finally become the hero they always wanted to be. What makes this story interesting is that it is being told by Prometheus, so every time Fenyx does something that they weren’t supposed to be able to do, in a way, it’s Prometheus that is once again empowering humanity with his story – even though a final twist undermines this whole point.

Then, there’s the fact that this is a Ubisoft game, which means that the start screen is cluttered with ads to buy season passes and in-game currency for armor skins: monetization is crucial for the company. Besides that, we can also accomplish easy daily challenges (because player retention is also important) that give us better rewards than a vault and can even make us fully upgrade Fenyx’ health and stamina without discovering every vault (their rewards become even more insignificant than before, just altering approximately 1% of some stat).

Immortals Fenyx Rising, then, is an uneven theme park based on Breath of the Wild, which means that it can offer harmless fun if the player is able to overlook some problems and doesn’t care about doing the same thing over and over again.

January 15, 2023.