Immortals Fenyx Rising dev comments on Breath of the Wild comparisons

Immortals' game director talks inspirations for the game formerly known as Gods and Monsters

Immortals Fenyx Rising, the game formerly known as Gods and Monsters, was officially re-revealed at last night's Ubisoft Forward. Arriving with a new name, gameplay tweaks, and a revamped art style, viewers were quick to draw Zelda: Breath of the Wild comparisons. 

There are plenty of similarities between the two games from the art style to the focus on stamina, as well as the overall world, and the fact that hero Fenyx can use her wings to glide across the map. In fact, some have gone as far as to draw direct comparisons between the trailers for the two titles:

We spoke to game director, Scott Phillips about the comparisons, who said that it's "cool" people making such claims. 

"For us, it’s cool to be compared to Breath of the Wild. It’s obviously considered a masterpiece. It’s a fantastic game," explains Phillips, before adding, "I think any time you make a game, you’re going to be compared to something else, because all game creation, all art creation, all everything is… you know, you build from what you know, and you create something new."

"Our inspirations range from Ratchet and Clank to Super Mario Odyssey to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, obviously. We have a pedigree from spending three years on that, on Ancient Greek history," adds Phillips. "So I think, you know, what we’ve created is really unique. And once you get your hands on it and start progressing through the entire experience, you’ll feel that we brought something very special to this game."

Interestingly enough, when it comes to the art style, Phillips says that the art director on the game gained most inspiration from the Studio Ghibli movies. 

"Early on, our art director felt that Studio Ghibli was the biggest inspiration for him: the sort of painterly style – realistic but with stylised proportions and visuals – to really convey the epic-ness of focusing on Greek mythology."

"Because, you know, with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which is where we had come from, we had spent a lot of time learning about Greek mythology and Greek history, but it was much more heavily on the history and recreating exactly what was there, versus with Immortals Fenyx Rising – we wanted to tell a grander, over-the-top, much more mythologically focused story that was brought into the 21st century for a whole new audience."

Immortals Fenyx Rising is launching December 3 on Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, and Google Stadia. 

Read our preview of the game, where we said that Immortals Fenyx Rising is family-friendly fantasy with just a whiff of loneliness.