The structural inconsistencies end up draining too much of the momentum in terms of storytelling. There are fun sections of “Fenyx Rising” where it reaches the classic games that it’s clearly imitating—enough to justify a playthrough for those who like those inspirations—but I kept hoping it would come together into something more consistently enjoyable. Admittedly, I’m writing this only about a dozen hours into the game—so take that for what it’s worth—but with so many major games this season like “Spider-Man: Miles Morales,” “Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla,” “Call of Duty: Black Ops Civil War,” and “Cyberpunk 2077” (watch for that review before the end of the year), this one could have a tough time standing out.
“Immortals Fenyx Rising” is a cross between the widely acknowledged modern classic “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and one of the better recent sequels, “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.” It’s an open-world adventure game with puzzle-solving vaults like “Zelda,” that uses the templates of Greek mythology like “Odyssey.” It opens with a wager of the Gods. Typhon has escaped imprisonment by Zeus, who goes to Prometheus to help. Prometheus uses foresight to tell the story of Fenyx, an average Greek soldier who is the only survivor of a shipwreck. Prometheus and Zeus narrate the entire story of “Fenyx Rising,” and some of it is surprisingly clever and funny. They poke fun at the very mythology and concepts on which the game relies, allowing the game to be more playful than self-serious.
Fenyx, who can be very customized by gender and appearance at the beginning of the game and changed at any point during it, arrives on the Golden Isle with little direction. He sees a young man being attacked, and saves him, learning that it’s Hermes, who basically becomes the in-game guide for Fenyx. He tells him that Typhon is growing in power and that Fenyx has to now restore the Gods who once ruled this land: Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaistos, and Athena. Other classic characters form Greek mythology will play roles in the narrative, including Achilles, Atalanta, Herakles, and Odysseus. And familiar creatures dot the landscape like the Minotaur and Cyclops.
