Immortals Fenyx Rising is much better than its bad name. It’s the latest big open-world game from Ubisoft. Wait, don’t run away! While it’s true Ubisoft has made some overly-long open world games before, Immortals is different. It’s a simpler, pared down game featuring a smaller map and more puzzles than your average Assassin’s Creed game. While it’s not as complex or big as other open-world titles released this year, there are still some things that might not be obvious or easy to overlook. So, here’s some tips to help you save the gods.
[referenced id=”1195572″ url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/12/immortals-fenyx-rising-the-kotaku-review/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/12/01/immortals-fenyx-rising-300×166.png” title=”Immortals: Fenyx Rising: The Kotaku Review” excerpt=”Immortals: Fenyx Rising isn’t the game I was expecting. I was prepared for a big Ubisoft open-world action game filled with colourful vistas, Greek gods, and some elements inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild. It is all of that, but it’s not just Assassin’s Creed: Hyrule….”]
Tweak The Visual Settings
I know this is an odd first tip, but I played this game on two different TVs and both times I had to tweak the settings to make the game look nicer. Specifically, the brightness and contrast while playing on an HDR screen can be overpowering and way too bright, making it hard to see what’s going on. Knock it down a bit to help save your eyes.
Explore (Or Return To) The Starting Area
You start the game at the Clashing Rocks. This small area of the map might not seem as interesting or fun as the later zones. That’s because… it is small and uninteresting to look at it. However, it also contains a high number of valuable epic chests. These are chests that have a helmet icon next to them and which will allow you to upgrade your armour later on. If you are trying to upgrade your armour, check to see if you, like me, left a bunch of epic chests sitting around back at the starting area and go grab ‘em.
Don’t Focus Only On Main Quests
It’s easy to spend a lot of time in Immortals doing main quests. They have big quest markers, connect to other main quests and will usually flow from one location to the next. But, try to break from the main quest and explore. For one, the world of Immortals is gorgeous and worth checking out. More importantly, you’ll be much weaker if you skip out on all the other content the game has to offer.
Get Your Bird!
As you are exploring and grabbing stuff, you’ll eventually encounter a cutscene of something crashing into the ground far from you. Then the quest “Bolt From The Blue” will become available. Go do this quest! It’s very easy, and you’ll gain a new bird companion who will be able to attack enemies for you at the press of a button. This bird also has skins, like many other things in Immortals, and these skins are more than just cosmetics. They each have unique perks that can help augment your combat toolbox.
Do Some Puzzles
Immortals is filled with puzzles. You can barely take a step in any direction without hitting one. This is a good thing, assuming you like puzzles, because each of these tests will reward you with various goodies. You might get coloured crystals, which help you upgrade gear. (More on that later.) You might get Charon Coins, which help you improve and unlock your abilities. (Also, more on that later.) The best rewards tend to come from Tartaros Vaults. These function a lot like the Relic Shrine puzzle rooms from Breath of The Wild, They are separate areas of the map that are built around specific puzzles and mechanics, like pushing wooden balls down ramps or using air currents to move boxes. Solving these will reward you with bits of Zeus’ Lightning Bolts, which you can use to upgrade your stamina!
Look Around, Look Around…
After climbing the first big statue in the game and revealing more of the map, the game teaches you about Far Sight, which lets you tag faraway locations, items and puzzles in the world, permanently marking them on your map. The thing is, you can use Far Sight anywhere in the game! And you should use it often. If you look around and see nothing around you, pop Far Sight and start marking new points of interest.
Stop Walking, Start Fast Travelling
While you can run and fly very quickly in Immortals, nothing is faster than… well fast travelling. Use your map to do so and remember that you can always fast travel to the Hall of Heroes, which you should do often…
Come Back To The Hall of Heroes Regularly
It’s easy to get sucked into Immortals and forget to return to the Hall of Heroes, your hub which unlocks at the start of the game. While it might seem annoying to stop exploring and questing, try to make a habit of coming back every hour or so. Why? Because this is the place where you’ll become stronger and deadlier via upgrades and unlocks. And all those rewards you got from questing and solving puzzles get put to use here, in the Hall of Heroes.
How Upgrades Work And What You’ll Need
In Immortals you can upgrade and unlock a lot of stuff. But how you do that and what you’ll need varies quite a bit. So here’s a quick run down!
- Stamina: This is a very important stat to upgrade as it makes climbing and fighting easier. To do so you’ll need Zeus’ Lightning Bolts. These can be obtained by completing Vaults or through some challenges. Once you have enough, head to the weightlifting bench to upgrade.
- Health: This is also something important to boost ASAP. Taking more damage is key to surviving later fights. To improve your health stat, look for shiny chunks of rainbow-coloured crystals that dot the map. This is Ambrosia, and collecting enough of it will let you upgrade your health. (It’s right next to the weightlifting bench.) Best way to find some of this stuff is through exploring, though some quests and puzzles reward it, too.
- Potions: Making potions involves collecting red pomegranates and blue mushrooms. These glow and are easy to collect. Take them back to the potion station to make potions. But also remember you can upgrade your potions using Amber. This stuff is often a reward in puzzle vaults or for beating quests, but you can find some in the world, too. Look for glowing trees and smack them down with a heavy hit of your axe.
- Weapons and Armour: These are upgraded using coloured shards. Most shards are easy to obtain by doing almost anything in the game that involves questing or killing. However, purple shards, which are used to upgrade your armour, are a bit trickier to find. Your best bet is to hit up epic chests. You can actually use the in-game map to show only epic chests, making them easier to farm. Also, keep an eye out for random coloured crystal shards sticking out of the ground. These will get you bonus shards once you smash them up.
- Skills and Godly Powers: These are upgraded using Charon Coins, which are easily obtained by completing Myth Challenges, which are marked on your map by golden icon featuring different items, like shoes or bows. These different challenges, when completed, will reward you with some useful coins that let you unlock new skills and upgrade abilities. Speaking of skills…
Get These Skills First Using Your Charon Coins
While all skills and abilities in Immortals are useful, some are much, much, MUCH more useful than others. Here are the first skills to unlock. (And lucky you, they are cheap!)
- Climb Leap (Costs 2 Coins): You are going to climb a lot in this game. This skill lets you hit the jump button while climbing to leap up and use less stamina to move faster. It’s a must-have skill.
- Glide Boost (Costs 2 Coins): Gliding around in Immortals is fun and useful, letting you cover large amounts of the map quickly. However, you can go even faster if you get this skill.
- Telekinesis Gathering (Costs 2 Coins): This skill makes it much easier to stock up on the items you need, like pomegranates, to make useful potions. When you grab a fruit with this skill, you’ll automatically grab all nearby fruit and resources. Using this skill, you can grab up a few dozen pomegranates from trees in a matter of seconds.
Skip The Little Cutscene That Plays Each Time You Upgrade Stuff
It’s cute the first time, but by the fifth time you’ll never want to see them again. So skip them using the B button on Xbox and Stadia, A button on Switch or O button on PlayStation. Just know, you might have to hit it a few times to fully skip through longer scenes. (This button can also be used to skip specific lines of dialogue during cutscenes. Hitting it once only skips the current line being spoken, letting you skip past long boring bits without skipping the whole cutscene.)
Don’t Ignore Hero Challenges
There’s a big slab of text at the Hall of Heroes. This is where you can find all the challenges in the game. Don’t sleep on these. Always check on your challenges when dropping by the Hall of Heroes, as you’ll get great rewards for fairly easy things, like killing a dozen guards or opening some chests. But you first have to activate a challenge to see your progress and eventually get the reward for completing it. (Also, the challenges on the left of the screen are built-in, offline challenges. The right side are online challenges with a limited time to complete.)
Get This Easy Achievement / Trophy
While at the Hall of Heroes, take a seat in the customisation chair and make a little change to your character to grab an easy achievement.
Tame A Better Mount
Early on, the game teaches you about taming animals, which lets your ride and summon them as trusty mounts. But don’t just stick with the first horse or deer you tame. Keep an eye out for better, cooler mounts. Many mounts have more stamina then the ones you’ll find early on, letting you explore the world more efficiently. The best mount I found was up north, near the Forgelands. It was a robot horse. It’s very good.
Don’t Slam Your Head Against A Puzzle For Hours
It’s easy to get focused on ONE puzzle that is annoying you. Don’t do this. Take a break. Go do a different puzzle or a main quest. That puzzle will still be there when you get back. And when all else fails, look up a solution online. Games are meant to be enjoyable. Don’t waste hours of your life being angry and frustrated. Instead, enjoy the colourful world and fun action of Immortals!
This article was originally published in December 2020.
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