The immortals Fenyx Rising let their bad father off the hook too easily

Video games have a father problem. My colleagues approached the subject a few months ago in an episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, where they ate some of the the worst dads in the history of video games. (What’s up, Kratos and Joel?) Now I’d like to nominate another member of the Evil Fathers Hall of Fame: Zeus, from Fenyx Rising Immortals.

The ridiculous open-world action game Ubisoft, released last month for consoles, PCs and switches (technical), is apparently about the titular character, a Greek shield named Fenyx. After winning the game, I’m less convinced it is. Yes, you spend your time with immortals in Fenyx’s bronze sandals, a place primarily for another story about another unexpected ascent to greatness. But considering immortals All in all, the game is really about Zeus, the Olympian gods, and the full nature of fatherhood — how any behavior, no matter how rotten, can be apparently undone and forgiven when a hat falls off.

The spoilers follow for Fenyx Rising Immortals.

Fenyx Rising Immortals presents a divided narrative based on Greek myth. At first, Typhon (practically the Balrog of ancient Greece) escapes from his underground prison, stripping most Olympians of their powers and declaring war on the pantheon. Zeus turns his tail and hits Prometheus for help. Prometheus triggers back with a bet: if a mortal can knock down Typhon, Prometheus ends up not swallowing his liver every day. If the mortal fails, well, then he will help. Zeus agrees.

Prometheus begins to tell Fenyx’s story. Following a shipwreck, she wakes up on a beach and soon finds out that every man has been mysteriously turned to stone. (You can play Fenyx as a man or a woman. I chose the latter.) She teams up with Hermes, the legendary messenger god, to fix things.

Along the way, Fenyx assists Aphrodite, the goddess of love; Athens, the goddess of wisdom; Ares, the god of war; and Hephaestus, the god of forging. In each line of search, she learns about the horrible, unforgivable ways in which Zeus treated his descendants. He married Aphrodite to Hephaestus, treating her more carefully than a chess piece. He repeatedly failed to trust Athens’ unparalleled understanding, sowing serious insecurity. He criticized and criticized Ares at every step and literally threw Hephaistus off a strange mountain. Short version: Zeus is a shitty father!

You learn all this through the eyes of Fenyx, yes, but it is also told by Prometheus and Zeus throughout, with Prometheus telling the plot beats and providing context while Zeus breaks jokes and generally refuses to take anything. seriously. The vocal distribution for these two roles is phenomenal: Elias toufexis, which you might recognize as Adam Jensen from the recent Deus Ex games, play Prometheus and Daniel Matmor (Socrates in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey) is Zeus.

Matmor’s top vocal performance is meant to make us believe that the Olympic leader has found redemption and is almost working. In a late mission, Zeus reflects on his own father (the titan Kronos) and says, “And he was a terrible father – almost as bad as me.” Matmor infuses so much gloomy reflection in this line that you want to believe that Zeus really believes that. Much of the rest of the mission is full of lines of dialogue in which Zeus admits his mistakes. In the last 39 hours, all of Matmor’s dialogue is easy and jovial. These heavier lines suggest that an arc is completely circle, or at least begin.

And then the turn hits.

So all the time, Prometheus was doing an act. Before the events of the game, Prometheus apparently defeated his brother Atlas to free Typhon and wreck Fenyx’s army. And then Zeus realizes that – the turn of the plot! – Fenyx is his daughter. Oh, yes, and Zeus is the one who turned all mortals into stone. (I remain in the dark about how exactly Zeus forgot this point.)

At this point, both lines of the plot converge – the one you play and the one you listen to. Fenyx supports the mountain of Prometheus, while Zeus audibly admits things that turn to stone, citing the inherent imperfection of mortal beings as reason. Fenyx is equipped with some god-killing poison, which he obtained after defeating Typhon a few moments before. Prometheus, we must assume, hopes to use Zeus. She refuses. “I know you’re not perfect. But you are my father and that matters, ”she says. “Did you think you got out of this so easily?” To say that you made a mistake is the first step. “Classic.

immortals then he throws himself into a lot of plot battles at the end of the game. Typhon appears back (who could have seen this coming?) And kidnaps Zeus. Fenyx pursues them, frees Zeus and fights Typhon again. All the gods team up and hit Typhon’s nonsense in a boss fight that, of course, has some thrilling moments.

I was with immortals to the end. After Typhon is good and dead, Zeus and his children just … reconcile. In a few seconds, they quarrel as if in an episode of Development arrested. Everything is peaches and sauce. I’m not a psychologist, but it’s hard to imagine that a literal eternity of neglect and poor treatment can be washed away in a moment. I’m not buying it. There is no such thing as easy parenting.

immortals he largely adopts a courageous approach through his storytelling. The quarrels of Zeus and Prometheus are really funny and I don’t remember a game with such a persistent narrative that would remain convincing throughout. I’m not saying that I think Fenyx should have killed Zeus, because that doesn’t correspond to her character, and also the death penalty is an unconscious sentence that should have been abolished yesterday. But I think I expected the end of the game to be as novel as the rest of the story. How surprising it would be immortalswas the end if, say, Aphrodite told Zeus to fuck herself? Or if Ares said, “You know what? For Hades with you, Dad – you’re crazy. “Yes, Zeus helped save the day, but it was still horrible – unforgivable – for all his children. A right action does not rewrite a history of mistakes.

I never wanted to be a father. The only time in my life that I doubted that for just a split second – and this is embarrassingly recognizable – was at the end of the year. The last of us, when Joel sets aside the fate of humanity for his surrogate daughter. In addition to the moral repercussions, this is a powerful moment. The way in which immortals“The story worked, I expected him to announce a similar reaction, to make me wonder if fatherhood is actually in the books. But when the credits were spoken, like a child of Zeus, I was disappointed.

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