Immortals Fenyx Rising Shares More With Assassin's Creed Than You Think

Following a four-hour hands-on session with Immortals Fenyx Rising, I had the chance to talk to narrative director Jeffrey Yohalem about the game. During the interview, I learned that the inspiration for Immortals' story is similar to that of the Assassin's Creed franchise--it's a fictional "what if" narrative designed to fill in a gap of history.

"There was this lost great poem called the Titanomachy, which is the history of the Titans against the Greek gods," Yohalem said. "So we do have one version of that story, which is loosely based on existing texts. But there's this missing epic poem that's hinted at in a bunch of other texts, and no one knows what the contents of it were. So the idea is that the story of Fenyx is that poem."

Immortals' similarities to Assassin's Creed shouldn't come as too much of a surprise--developer Ubisoft Quebec has ties to the franchise. The studio is responsible for developing expansions for Assassin's Creed III and IV: Black Flag, as well as taking the helm on Syndicate and Odyssey.

"I worked on Assassin's Creed before, and I approached [Immortals] the same way--the idea that it is accurate to all of the texts that currently exist--but you're looking at cracks in history and you're filling in those cracks with what ifs," Yohalem said.

This is part of the reason for why players are able to customize Fenyx's gender, skin color, hair, eyes, and voice. As this particular Greek myth has been lost to time, it's unclear as to who Fenyx was. "I think it's a way for you to really own that experience for yourself, which is important," Yohalem said. "We don't know what any of these characters look like since we only have texts, so I think it fits nicely that within a text, it's [the player] going through this."

Immortals Fenyx Rising is scheduled to release for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One, PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia on December 3. A free demo is now available via Google Stadia.