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Immortals Fenyx Rising Game Review

Immortals Fenyx Rising is a 2020 action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft and released on PC among other platforms. It’s a highly underrated, wonderful game.

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“I was ready to be summoned the moment I was born“

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When this game was released it received pretty good, but far from great reviews. It is still not as popular or as renowned as other Ubisoft franchises, but in my eyes it stands head to toe with some of the best Assassin’s Creed entries. It’s an immensely underappreciated gem of the open world action-adventure genre and one of my favorite games that I’ve played recently.

As a big fan of Greek Mythology and ancient history in general, this game was a blast for me to play much in the same vein as ‘AC Origins’ was. But this one functions as a full fantasy story with numerous mythological creatures wonderfully utilized as bosses and dozens of gods and goddesses, who are all written in this very contemporary manner. It takes some time getting used to this overly modern approach to its story and characters, but ultimately it worked because it made the game feel more unique and timely while still retaining the majesty and scope of this mythology.

Fenyx is a mortal and he is tasked to restore gods and goddesses to their original form with their full powers in order to stop Typhon, the one responsible for wounding the world and the gods. I was surprised by how good the plot in this game is. It’s so great, in fact, that it just might be used as a material for a movie or, better yet, a television series. It’s funny, richly detailed, epic in scope and consistently very engaging while making perfect use of its framing device and structure that very much fits it as a video game first and foremost. It’s a wonderfully paced game in its story and gameplay and I also loved how it all concluded.

Zeus and Prometheus narrate the proceedings to us and this was a brilliant choice that fully worked. I am not the biggest fan of narration, but this one was done with a tongue firmly planted in its cheek, so it felt terrific. These two with their bickering never ceased to amuse me. The game consistently put a smile on my face, especially due to its witty dialogue and strong character moments. Fenyx is quite a memorable protagonist and Hermes acts as a terrific sidekick – the two have this very homoerotic dynamic that was so much fun.

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The entire game was clearly written by some gay authors as it was filled with gay and lesbian references, either in looks or side lines. One such line was too annoyingly timely, but other than that one tidbit, I loved most of the dialogue. The humor is so good that constantly I found myself laughing at the jokes. More of this please Ubisoft. Typhon is a typically over-the-top, but entertaining big bad guy. Zeus’ troubled family history is well explored and his friendship with the annoyed and tortured Prometheus was lovely. The highlights are the main gods and goddesses that you have to restore – Aphrodite, Athena, Hephaistos and Ares. These four would bicker to no end, making them feel like a modern makeshift family. The soap opera quality to the writing was very appealing, especially in regards to the dialogue that often relied on dumb jealousy and jokes made at the expense of the others’ fashion choices.

Graphically, Immortals Fenyx Rising is a delight. This is another standout element to this game that made it feel very unique, especially compared to the other AAA titles today. While most big games would strive to look as photorealistic and “serious” as possible, this one is the total opposite. I’ve already stated that its tone and approach are immature and comedic, which is already different enough, but the visuals are also light and colorful instead of dark and grounded.

The resulting style is reminiscent more of animation than of live-action. The character designs are for the most part excellent with one caveat – no matter how much I tried, my guy would always look more like a lesbian than a man, which bothered me quite a bit. But the creatures looked excellent. The highlights are the gorgeous backgrounds, incredibly detailed architecture of all places (the steampunk world of Hephaistos was a visual delight) and the color palette that was different and unique in each region.

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Valley of Eternal Spring and Grove of Kleos are lush and green in their surroundings and just gorgeous to behold. They were the most innocent and easiest parts of the game. The Forgelands is the most technological part while War’s Den and Gates of Tartaros are the most serious and by far the darkest of the bunch. Clashing Rocks is a unique island setting and King’s Peak is this huge mountain that you need to climb to get to the final boss. That entire section of the game was suitably mythical and majestic, though at times frustrating (freezing without fire was an overly realistic scenario that made this part way too difficult to get through).

The audio is another highlight. Every sound is evocative and fantastic. The score is phenomenal. It doesn’t appear a whole lot, but whenever I heard its themes, I was having a blast. The opening is stunning and the cues accompanying quests and certain puzzles were all suitably powerful and timeless in the instruments and sounds being used – the horn was particularly unique.

The world building is amazing and the game’s length is just right. The main campaign is solidly long while getting to 100% will take quite a bit of time, which I always appreciate as a completionist. The controls aren’t the most intuitive, but they worked for the most part and I didn’t have much issue getting accustomed to them. The voice acting is another fabulous aspect as every single actor did a terrific job.

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Comparatively, Fenyx Rising isn’t as unique or as exciting in gameplay as in the aforementioned areas, but I’ve had an absolute blast playing it and that fun factor gotta account for something. It’s an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective and it’s open world. Yes, this genre best describes this project, but I would also counter that it is also many other things wrapped into one, which is the case for most recent AAA games. The RPG elements in potions, skill tree and weapons are certainly evident and quite advanced for this type of game, but the bosses also obviously were inspired by soulslike games in the vein of ‘Sekiro’, especially evident in the stature breaking. And of course there is a big puzzle component through its numerous vaults and locked chests scattered throughout the world.

This is one of those games that aren’t fully an RPG, but have such extensive elements. This means that the beginning will be harder than the later sections of the playthrough. Once I have unlocked all godly powers and fully upgraded weapons, stamina and health, it was smooth sailing from then on. The bosses operate in that soulslike subgenre – they require a lot of potions used and consistent attacks to break stature and then beat them senselessly while they are down.

It’s a winning formula that mostly worked here, thought the difficulty level was on the easier side of things for better and for worse. Typhon in particular disappointed me. This is the final boss and he was built up so much that the final fight ended up being not too difficult at all. But most of the bosses are a lot of fun and lower difficulty meant that the game never felt frustrating, which was refreshing. Although the regular enemies suffer from having standard movement and attack patterns, most of the map features spawns of numerous enemies attacking you all at once, which did lead to a lot of exciting and intense battling. I found those flying creatures and those pesky soldiers particularly frustrating while the larger enemies were easier to handle.

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Fenyx Rising doesn’t have the biggest map, but it’s still quite large. I appreciated that fast travel points are not scattered too sparsely, which did lead to the game forcing you to fly, run and experience the vistas quite often. There is a lot to do here for completionists and I’ve had an absolute blast finding each chest and power-up. Chests are either guarded by enemies during day or night, but some of them are also hidden inside certain mechanisms that require solving a puzzle to get to them. All of these functioned well and were a nice, pleasant experience. There are also myth challenges and those mined the game’s setting and time period perfectly, feeling mythological and ancient while still being a lot of fun. Guiding arrows through hoops was just difficult enough to be a solid challenge. I loved playing through those. The lyre challenges are somewhat forgettable, but fine. And the timed missions requiring quick flying and/or running were immensely rewarding and entertaining.

I did not use bow and arrows all that often. Same goes for swords. Axes break stature, so those were crucial for me. Hephaistos’ hammer was by far my favorite godly power and I ended up using that one for the vast majority of major bosses. All of the armor and weapons can be upgraded and the same goes for the godly powers and special abilities (some of those were crucial in making fighting and traversing much easier). You can also craft potions and customize your appearance. The Hall of Gods is a gorgeous-looking place and it was always fun and exciting getting there to upgrade my stuff.

But let’s talk about stamina. This can also be upgraded and it was of the utmost importance for me to upgrade it as soon as possible. You see, in this game you need stamina to do literally anything – jumping, running, flying and fighting all deplete your stamina, forcing you to wait and relax until it goes up again. This was a highly realistic, but also somewhat unnecessary aspect to the game that seemed ridiculously cumbersome at times. Eventually, I’d come to master it, but there is no doubt about it – flying and especially climbing could be frustrating if you run out of stamina and you fall down and start all over again. It’s a very advanced and unique system, but one that was ultimately too limiting for the player.

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As for the vaults, those are the most memorable sections of the game for better and for worse. Those reviewers who criticized the puzzles for being too simple and repetitive clearly did not play enough of the game to write a proper review as is sadly often the case with them. As somebody who did end up beating the entire game, I have to say that the puzzle are varied and unique. At first, they were on the simpler side of things. But eventually they became more advanced and complicated as you progress to the hardest vaults. Moving the blocks was fine enough, but moving the balls to their designated places while having to control the wind and/or gravitation was quite difficult. Some of these vaults are too frustratingly hard, but most posed an interesting and rewarding mental challenge. Some of the vaults also focused on archery and speed while others function as these hugely entertaining arenas where you have to go through three waves of enemies.