Immortals Fenyx Rising makes his evil father off the hook very easily

Video games have a problem with their father. My colleagues approached the subject a few months ago in an episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, where they served some of worst parents in the history of video games. (What is it, Kratos and Joel?) Now, I would like to nominate another member for the bad parents’ hall of fame: Zeus, from Immortals Fenyx Rising.

The ridiculously named open-world action game from Ubisoft, released last month for consoles, PC and Switch (technically), is ostensibly about the title character, a Greek squire named Fenyx. After winning the game, I am less convinced that this is the case. Yes, you spend your time with Immortals in Fenyx’s bronze sandals, a front row seat for yet another story about yet another unexpected rise to greatness. But considering Immortals in all, the game is really about Zeus, the gods of Olympus and the charged nature of parenthood – like any behavior, no matter how rotten, it can apparently be discarded and forgiven at the drop of a hat.

Spoilers follow for Immortals Fenyx Rising.

Immortals Fenyx Rising presents a divided narrative based on the Greek myth. In the beginning, Typhon (basically, the Balrog of ancient Greece) escapes from his underground prison, takes away most of the Olympic powers and declares war on the pantheon. Zeus turns his tail and asks Prometheus for help. Prometheus fires back with a bet: if a mortal can take Typhon down, Prometheus gets an eagle to not swallow his liver every day. If the mortal fails, well, So it will help. Zeus agrees.

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

Along the way, Fenyx helps Aphrodite, the goddess of love; Athena, the goddess of wisdom; Ares, the god of war; and Hephaestus, the god of the forge. In each questline, she learns about the horrible and unforgivable ways in which Zeus treated his offspring. He married Aphrodite to Hephaestus, treating her with the same consideration that he would treat a chess piece. He repeatedly failed to rely on Athena’s incomparable insight, sowing some seriously deep insecurity. He undermined and criticized Ares at every step, and literally threw Hephaestus from a scary mountain. Short version: Zeus is a shitty father!

You learn all of this through Fenyx’s eyes, yes, but it’s also narrated by Prometheus and Zeus all the way, with Prometheus counting the plot’s beats and offering context while Zeus tells jokes and usually refuses to take anything seriously. The vocal cast for these two roles is phenomenal: Elias Toufexis, which you can recognize as Adam Jensen from the recent Deus Ex games, plays Prometheus, and Daniel Matmor (Socrates in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey) is Zeus.

Matmor’s high-profile vocal performance aims to make us believe that the Olympic chief has found redemption, and it almost works. On a mission at the end of the game, Zeus reflects on his own father (the titan Kronos) and says: “He was a terrible father too – almost as bad as me”. Matmor infuses so many dark reflections in this line that you want to believe that Zeus really believes that. Much of the rest of the mission is peppered with lines of dialogue where Zeus recognizes his flaws. In the previous 39 hours, Matmor’s entire dialogue is light and youthful. These heavier lines suggest a full circle, or at least beginning.

And then the turnaround comes.

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

It is at this point that both threads of the plot – the one you interpret and the one you hear – converge. Fenyx reaches the top of Prometheus’ mountain while Zeus audibly admits the transformation of everyone to stone, citing the inherent imperfection of mortal beings as his justification. Fenyx is equipped with some deadly poison, which she obtained after defeating Typhon moments before. He promised, we must suppose, he expects her to use it on Zeus. She refuses. “I know you are not perfect. But you are my father and that is what matters, ”she says. “Did you think you were going to get out of this so easy? Saying that you made a mistake is the first step. ”Classic.

Immortals then it precipitates in a flood of game-ending story hits. Typhon appears back (who could have predicted that?) And kidnaps Zeus. Fenyx chases them, frees Zeus and fights Typhon again. All the gods unite and punch Typhon in a boss fight that, admittedly, has some exciting moments.

I was with Immortals until the end. After Typhon is well and dead, Zeus and his sons just … make up. Within seconds, they are fighting as if they were in an episode of Development held. Everything is peach and sauce. I’m not a psychologist, but it’s hard to imagine that a literal eternity of neglect and inadequate treatment can be washed away in a moment. I do not believe. There is no way that parenting can be so easy.

Immortals largely takes a bold approach to his narrative. The fights of Zeus and Prometheus are genuinely funny, and I can’t remember a game with a narration so persistent that it remains convincing all the time. I am not saying that I think Fenyx should have killed Zeus, because that is not in keeping with his character, and also the death penalty is an inconceivable sentence that should have been abolished yesterday. But I think I expected the end of the game to be as new as the rest of the story. How much more surprising would it be ImmortalsThe end was if, say, Aphrodite sent Zeus to fuck himself? Or if Ares said, “You know what? For Hades with you, dad – you are a total idiot. “Yes, Zeus helped to save the day, but it was still horrible – unforgivably – with all his children. A fair deed does not rewrite a history of mistakes.

I never wanted to be a father. The only moment in my life when I remotely questioned that, for just a fraction of a second – and this is embarrassing to admit – was at the end of the The last of us, when Joel leaves humanity’s destiny aside for his surrogate daughter. Leaving aside the moral repercussions, this is a powerful moment. The way ImmortalsAs the story was going on, I expected it to portend a similar reaction, to ask me if paternity really is in the cards. But when the credits rolled, like a son of Zeus, I stayed on hand.

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