Immortals Fenyx Rising lets his bad father get off the hook too easily

Video games have a parenting issue. My colleagues addressed the issue a few months ago in an episode of Kotaku split screen, where they silvered some of the the worst parents in the history of video games. (What’s up, Kratos and Joel?) Now I’d like to nominate another member of the Bad Parents Hall of Fame: Zeus, from Immortals Fenyx Rising.

The ridiculous open world action game called Ubisoft, released last month for consoles, PC and Switch (technically), apparently deals with the titular character, a Greek scout named Fenyx. After winning the match, I am less convinced that is the case. Yes, spend your time there Immortals in Fenyx’s bronze sandals, a front-row seat for another tale about another unexpected rise to greatness. But considering Immortals all in all, the game is really about Zeus, the Olympic gods, and the tense nature of fatherhood: how you can nullify any behavior, no matter how rotten, and forgiven with the drop of a hat.

Spoilers continue to Immortals Fenyx Rising.

Immortals Fenyx Rising presents a divided narrative based on the Greek myth. At first, Typhon (basically the Balrog of ancient Greece) escapes from his underground prison, strips most of the Olympians of their powers and declares war on the pantheon. Zeus turns his tail and hits Prometheus for help. Prometheus shoots again with a bet: if a mortal can knock down the typhoon, Prometheus fails to get an eagle to swallow his liver every day. If the mortal fails, well, then he will help. Zeus agrees.

Prometheus begins to tell the story of Fenyx. After a shipwreck, he wakes up on a beach and soon learns that all humans have been mysteriously turned to stone. (You can play Fenyx as a man or woman. I chose the latter). He partners with 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 forging. In each line of research, he learns the horrible and unforgivable ways Zeus has dealt with his offspring. He married Aphrodite to Hephaestus, treating her with no more respect than him with a piece of chess. He could not rely on the unparalleled vision of Athena on several occasions, which caused a profoundly deep insecurity. He reduced and criticized Ares at every step and literally threw Hephaistos off a freakin mountain. Short version: Zeus is a shitty father!

All this is learned through the eyes of Fenyx, yes, but it is also narrated by Prometheus and Zeus all the way, with Prometheus explaining the rhythms of the plot and providing context, while Zeus breaks the jokes and usually refuses to take anything seriously. The vocal casting of these two roles is phenomenal: Elias Toufexis, whom you may recognize as Adam Jensen of the recent Deus Ex games, play Prometheus and Daniel Matmor (Socrates a Assassin’s Creed Odyssey) is Zeus.

Matmor’s first-rate vocal performance wants us to believe that the Olympic major has found redemption and it almost works. On a completed mission, Zeus reflects on his own father (the titan Kronos) and says, “He was also a terrible father, almost as bad as I am.” Matmor infuses so much gloomy reflection along this line that you want to believe that Zeus really believes it. Much of the rest of the mission is full of lines of dialogue where Zeus acknowledges his flaws. For the previous 39 hours, Matmor’s entire dialogue is light and cheerful. These heavier lines suggest that an arc makes a full circle, or at least begins to do so.

And then it’s the turn.

So Prometheus did an act. Before the events of the game, Prometheus apparently touched his brother Atlas to free Typhon and destroy Fenyx’s army. And then Zeus realizes that, the twist of the plot, is Fenyx his daughter. Oh, yes, and Zeus turned all mortals to stone. (I stay in the dark about how exactly Zeus forgot this point).

At this point the two plot threads converge, what you touch and what you hear. Fenyx climbs the mountain of Prometheus to the right, as Zeus auditorily admits what becomes stone, and cites its inherent imperfection in mortal beings as a foundation. Fenyx is equipped with some poison that killed God, which he got after defeating Typhon moments before. Suppose Prometheus expects you to use it on Zeus. She declines. “I know you’re not perfect. But you are my father and that is what matters, ”he says. “Did you think you got out of this so easily? To say that you have made a mistake is the first step ”. Classic.

Immortals then rushes into a wave of plot rhythms at the end of the game. Typhon reappears (who could have seen him coming) and kidnaps Zeus. Fenyx pursues them, frees Zeus and fights Typhon again. All the gods team up and reject Typhon’s shit in a head-to-head fight that certainly has some exciting moments.

I was with Immortals until the end. After Typhon’s death and death, Zeus and his sons … reconcile. In a matter of seconds, they fight as if they were in an episode of Development stopped. It’s all peaches and sauce. I’m not a psychologist, but it’s hard to imagine that a literal eternity of neglect and mistreatment could be carried away in a moment. I don’t buy it. Paternity is not that simple.

Immortals he largely takes a brave approach with his storytelling. The quarrels between Zeus and Prometheus are really funny and I don’t remember a game with such a persistent narrative that remains compelling. I’m not saying I think Fenyx should have killed Zeus, because that doesn’t go along with his character, and also the death penalty is an unconscious sentence that should have been abolished yesterday. But I guess I expected the end of the game to be as new as the rest of the story. What more amazing it would be ImmortalsThe end has been if, for example, Aphrodite told Zeus to fuck herself? Or if Ares said, “You know what? For Hades with you, father, you are an idiot ”. Yes, Zeus helped save the day, but it was still horrible, unforgivable, for all his children. A fair action does not rewrite a history of errors.

I never wanted to be a father. The only time in my life when I remotely questioned that, for just a split second — and that’s embarrassing to admit — was at the end of The last of us, when Joel sets aside the fate of humanity for his surrogate daughter. Aside from the moral repercussions, this is a powerful moment. The path Immortals“The story was going on, I was hoping it would bode well for a similar reaction, to make me wonder if fatherhood is really on the cards. But when the credits came out, like a son of Zeus, I was disappointed.

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