Immortals Fenyx Rising Stadia Demo
Thursday 22nd October brought to us the 3rd and final day of the Google Stadia Good Stuff event, now obviously as you can see from the title that is not the reason for this post but I do just want to say that they used the word Good in the loosest sense, the whole event, in my opinion, was meh at best, but I digress, the last announcement which had in all fairness already been spoiled after the first day of the event on Tuesday was that we would get a demo of Ubisoft's upcoming title Immortals Fenyx Rising an open-world game set in ancient Greece where you as the titular hero Fenyx must save the Greek Gods from Typhon, who the makers say is the deadliest titan in Greek mythology, now if we want to be pedantic then we can go into how he wasn't actually a titan but we’re not here for a mythology lesson.
My first impression of the game was that it is very Zelda: Breath of the Wild like in the visuals department and with the use of a stamina mechanic which is used when climbing, flying, lifting objects and using certain attacks. This comparison is not new by any means and has been used for the game since we started seeing game footage but I can safely say that this is far from a clone and once I got started I couldn’t think of anything other than the intriguing story and beautiful world laid out in front of me.
The demo allows you to play what looks like the tutorial part of the main game titled The Secret of the Cyclops, you are tasked with freeing Polyphemus the cyclops from Circe’s icy spell by obtaining the Siren’s Song.
The game starts with Prometheus telling a story which is then interrupted by Zeus, you basically play through their story with the 2 of them narrating you as you go. Prometheus from the sounds of it is trying to stick to the story while Zeus is embellishing events as much as possible to spice things up, the 2 characters actually play off very well together and will definitely add some nice humour as you progress through the story, depending of course how long their narration is part of the main game.
The combat revolves around light sword attacks and heavy axe attacks but also borrows from the recent assassins creed games by allowing you to open up special abilities by pressing L1 and the abilities corresponding A, X, Y or B button (Stadia Controller), these special abilities deplete your stamina metre so you have to use them wisely.
In addition to the combat, you also get loads of mini-games and puzzles spread throughout the world, some to progress the story you are on and some to open boxes which will have new items in for you to equip. The puzzles I came across were the constellation challenge puzzle which opened up the Siren’s Song you need for the main quest, pressure pads that required you lifting or pushing boxes onto them to open up a forcefield type door and a game where you had to shoot an arrow and guide it through a course to light a big torch. These add a nice variation to the combat and exploration and although they were very straight forward in the demo I would expect these to get harder and start to challenge you as the game progresses.
Once you complete the demo you unlock the Stadium Gear Set which I assume is a Stadia only reward, once you link your Ubisoft account you receive the armour on the day of release which is a nice little reward for taking part in the demo.
I’ve been looking forward to this game more and more since it was announced so was very happy when I found out I would get to play the demo. I was not disappointed at all as this brings good things from the fantastic Zelda: Breath of the Wild and mixes it with Greek mythology of which I'm totally in love, this is an absolute win-win for me and I think anyone who gives this game a try will fall in love with it just as I have, December 3rd can’t get here quick enough for me.