Following my four-hour hands-on preview with the game, I was a bit surprised to see just how narrative-driven Immortals Fenyx Rising is. The opening hours of the game set up a young hero striving to find their worth in their older brother's shadow, four siblings stripped of their individuality, and two father figures sitting down to see how the whole story will play out. Like narrative director Jeffrey Yohalem told me, "This game is about a family."
This is why Immortals largely focuses on Zues, Aphrodite, Athena, Ares, Hermes, and Hephaestus--the six represent a single family unit within the much larger Greek pantheon. "All of [them] are the direct family members of Zeus except for Aphrodite, but she's a daughter-in-law and kind of an adopted daughter," Yohalem said. "For me, this encapsulated that idea of family, with Zeus as the head."
It's not unheard of for video games to use the drama-filled mythology of the Greek gods to explore themes of familial bonds--Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Hades, among others, have done it before. But you're usually a member of that Greek family in those games. Immortals puts you into the role of an outsider, Fenyx, who is there to help talk the gods through their subconscious desires and unspoken issues to grow stronger as a family.
Continue Reading at GameSpot