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Immortals Fenyx Rising: Tips and tricks every new player must know
How to get ahead in Ubisoft's mythological open-world epic
Immortals Fenyx Rising is out this week, and it’s another sprawling Ubisoft open world full of intrigue and collectibles! Inspired by their work on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the developers have turned out an entertaining romp through Greek mythology, and to make the most of it, we recommend you absorb the following tips.
Learn the combat basics to flourish
Learning to parry is an essential skill in Immortals Fenyx Rising
© Ubisoft
Combat in Immortals has its roots in the Assassin’s Creed series, but the game also leans heavily on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and this fusion of styles is a joy to play with once you get used to it.
To begin with, we recommend focusing on dodge timing and parries. Don't worry, though; both are extremely forgiving mechanics compared to most action games. Dodging just before an enemy strike — all of which are heavily telegraphed — preserves your health and slows down time for you to land a flurry of blows in reply. From a charging Minotaur to a ground-pounding Cyclops, you can dodge almost anything in Immortals.
Parrying, meanwhile, feels a little awkward at first as it involves gripping the left and right bumpers at the same time, but once you adapt to this, it’s super powerful. It breaks tougher enemies’ shield guard, as well. It’s particularly useful against harpy enemies, deflecting their projectiles back in their direction for an easy takedown, which is just as satisfying here as it was when used for blowing up Guardians in Breath of the Wild.
Get a horse!
A horse is going to make traversal so much easier in Immortals Fenyx Rising
© Ubisoft
Fenyx is pretty mobile anyway, running at a fair clip and able to glide on her Daedalus wings, so anything that is downhill or accessed via an elevated spawn point is a literal breeze to reach. But Immortals also lets you stash a horse for added mobility (providing you spend a few minutes tracking one down!)
Horses roam the Eternal Springs area in a few places, so simply find where they’re lurking — you can usually hear them when you’re nearby — and then sneak up behind one and press Y/triangle. Having secured yourself a ride, you can then summon it whenever you like.
Scan everything, then focus on health and stamina pips
Gliding is incredibly satisfying when you're dropping into a lower area
© Ubisoft
Fenyx has the same sort of crazy perception skills as Assassin’s Creed heroes, able to sniff out a collectible from miles away and permanently remember where it is. But unlike Kassandra, Eivor, and their ilk, she has to do a bit of legwork to retain the information.
Once you’ve clambered up the giant god statue in the centre of a new area, you’re invited to click the right stick and use Far Sight to perceive your surroundings. You then need to drag your cursor all over the landscape, and use the rumble feedback to sense items of interest. Once you zero in completely on one, it can be revealed and marked on your map. (You can also find things out in the world through proximity, but scanning helps you map out the Golden Isles thoroughly so you can pre-plan your forays.)
Having populated your map, we recommend focusing on Ambrosia locations and Tartarus Vaults to begin with. Ambrosia can be used to upgrade your health, while Vaults always hold Zeus lightning bolts, which go towards stamina. HP and stamina will be vital to survival and mobility as you delve deeper into the story and simply navigate the world, so they are good things to prioritise.
Stock up on potions
In another nod to Breath of the Wild, the developers — dizzy though they presumably already were from their ever-waggling heads — expect you to collect ingredients and craft potions to stay healthy and get ahead in combat.
Ubisoft’s system isn’t as deep and interesting as Nintendo’s (with just a few potions to collect) but you will want to keep your collection topped up, because there are big enemy mobs and boss fights aplenty spread across the critical path and out in the world, and it sucks to get caught short.
To help with this, we recommend prioritising the ability upgrade that grabs multiple nearby herbs whenever you pick something up. This allows you to gather pomegranates, mushrooms and the like much quicker when you find them out in the Golden Isles. And remember to find your way back to a potion mixing station when you can — individual herbs and fruit can be used for limited restoration when you’re in a tight spot, but it’s nothing compared to an actual potion.
Get the slow arrow control
Your bow and arrows are essential in Immortals
© Ubisoft
Fenyx quickly gains the ability to control arrow direction in flight, similar to recent Assassin’s Creed protagonists and other video game heroes. (Our personal favourite example of this was the Redeemer in Unreal Tournament... No, you’re old!) But to make the most of it, you also want the unlockable ability that lets you slow down and speed up the arrow.
That’s because Ubisoft hasn’t been shy about demanding close arrow control throughout the game as the basis of puzzle solutions. You can get by without the fine control for a while, but once you start cracking the more advanced Tartarus Vaults and later areas, you will want the extra precision to make sure you can handle it.
The emphasis on precision arrows is another good excuse to focus on stamina growth, too, because for whatever reason, directing arrows in flight also drains stamina.
Take on side quests from the bulletin board
Check out the bulletin borad for quick, easy tasks
© Ubisoft
Once you reach the Hall of the Gods, you can access a bunch of tools for upgrades and the like, and it can be a little dizzying. Before you head off into the world though, make sure you pay attention to the unassuming bulletin board plastered on one of the pillars. This doles out small side quests -- similar to bounties in Destiny or similar live service games -- that give you some handy extra rewards.
Given that most of these quests involve collecting things or battering enemies in ways that you would be doing anyhow, it's trivial to finish a lot of them over time, and the extra materials you gain for your trouble are well worth staring at the board once in a while. There are time-limited quests too, so if you fancy a change of pace, why not try one of those?
Save manually, save often
It's good advice for any game – save often!
© Ubisoft
Immortals Fenyx Rising is a pretty solid game and we’ve seen very few bugs, but unfortunately one of the ones we have encountered cost us a lot of progress. Very occasionally — it happened to us and a colleague once each in the space of around 60 hours’ collective play — the game will crash while overwriting a manual save or trying to load a menu after a long session. When this happens, you need to close the application and start it up again.
This won’t cost you much time, especially on the new consoles, but if you haven’t manually saved for a while, then it can cost you plenty of progress, because Immortals’ auto save function seems flaky at best. So take our advice: every time you complete an activity, dip into the menu for a quick-save or a proper manual one. You’ll thank us in the long run.
