Video game development is a complicated process, with triple-a titles often the product of hundreds of people collaborating to make a single product. Because of that, things can go wrong, resulting in bugs and issues being ironed out before a game launches. However, those bugs can be entertaining from time to time, and sometimes even help inspire new games entirely. Such is the case withImmortals Fenyx Rising,an upcoming title from Ubisoft.
In an interview,Immortals Fenyx RisingGame Director Scott Phillipsrevealed that anAssassin’s Creed Odysseybug helped inspire the idea forImmortals. “While we were developingAssassin’s Creed Odyssey, I think the first, time for me, that I had a hint of whatImmortals Fenyx Risingcould become, was actually a bug,” Phillips tells us, “As the player, you were on your ship and your ship crew was normally humans, but in this case, all the humans got turned into cyclopses, so you had a ship full of cyclopses. And it sort of, for me, kicked off this feeling of, ‘Hey, that’s pretty cool. We have this whole depth of knowledge that we built about Ancient Greek history, but we also have this little bit of mythology. Maybe we could go a lot deeper into this mythology.’ So, afterAssassin’s Creed Odyssey, we got the opportunity to develop a much deeper game going into Ancient Greek mythology, and that’s whereImmortals Fenyx Risingcomes from.”
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Immortals Fenyx Risingis heavily influenced by Greek mythology, but it takes a light-hearted and fantastical approach. It’s easy to see how the cyclops bug would help move things in that direction, as it’s a mixture of absurd and entertaining, something the game clearly incorporates into its structure. With banter between Zeus and Prometheus being common in the game,Immortalsis a fair bit different than anything else that Ubisoft has done recently.
TheAssassin’s Creed Odysseyinspirationsdon’t stop there, of course.Immortalsfeatures combat heavily inspiredOdyssey,coupled with other elements that lend it a slight sense of familiarity. However, it’s an interesting origin for the game, though not one as far out there as some might expect. Game bugs have inspired new titles for years, perhaps most famouslyDevil May Cry,which was inspired by a bug inOnimusha: Warlords.
ImmortalsFenyx Risinglaunches in December, and with its open-world, non-linear nature, there are likely to be plenty of nods to other games and Easter eggs scattered around for players to find. Ubisoft has incorporated elements of its other games in new titles before, and whileImmortalsdoesn’t exactly fit in with some of the other games in Ubisoft’s lineup tonally, it seems safe to assume that players will find at least some references in it.
The recentUbisoft Forwardevent revealed a number of new details about its upcoming games, including new information aboutImmortalsitself. The company has a full roster of games for current-gen and next-gen consoles, putting it in a solid position for the coming months. Of course, that all depends on how well it sticks the landing for the new games. In the meantime, fans will just have to wait to learn more.
Immortals Fenyx Risingis in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
