I am not very surprised when Ubisoft announces that one of its big games will get piles of post-release expansions. It’s news when they don’t. But I am surprised at how interesting and unusual the recently announced expansions for next month’s Immortals Fenyx Rising seem to be.
The first one, “A New God,” sounds like what I expected for an action-adventure game that looks like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild set amid Greek mythology. That expansion will let you “overcome the legendary trials and challenges of the gods of Olympos to change the Greek Pantheon and fulfill your destiny.”
The second expansion, “Myths of the Eastern Realm” drew my eye.
Here’s the official description:
Play a brand-new story inspired by Chinese mythology, where you’ll encounter new gods and fight exotic monsters in a distant land, as Ku, a new hero.
I hadn’t expected the game to go to China, and I’m not sure I’d have wanted it to. Immortals is made by a bunch of Ubisoft Studios, with the overall project being led by a lot of the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey team at Ubisoft Quebec.
The Chinese expansion, however, will be made primarily by Ubisoft Chengdu, one of Ubisoft’s studios in China, according to a Ubisoft rep.
Ubisoft sets its games all over the world and involves studios from around the globe to create them, but development is usually led by studios in Canada or France. It’s unusual enough to see one of the so-called satellite studios leading an unusual project, and even more unusual—and pretty exciting—to see that a Chinese studio will basically lead the creation of a Chinese-themed game for Ubisoft (yes, it’s an expansion, but with its own lead character, it seems like it could be its own thing.) Of course, we’ve been getting more access to Chinese-developed gaming in the west this year, thanks to the huge success of Genshin Impact.
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I’m also really curious about Immortals’ third expansion, which will add a new adventure that plays as a top-down brawler. Pretty wild.
Immortals has to come out before any of its interesting DLC does. The game is out on December 3 for just about every gaming platform. The expansions will follow in the months beyond.
