When the post-launch plan was announced for Immortals Fenyx Rising, The Lost Gods add-on had captured the most attention. And that attention and anticipation has only grown for fans of the base game, as the previous two DLCs – A New God and Myths of the Eastern Realm – were found to be lacking. Can this final add-on salvage a pretty lacklustre Season Pass?
The Lost Gods actually continues the story at the ending of A New God – and warns you beforehand if you have yet to complete it – despite featuring a new protagonist. This time around, you play as Ash, a mortal chosen by Athena and Fenyx to help reunite the gods. The likes of Poseidon, Hades and more have all turned their backs on Zeus and Mount Olympus, and only you can help bring them back.
Ash is a likeable new protagonist but will feel very familiar if your version of Fenyx was based on the feminine model. Ash’s default character model can also not be amended, but you have the option at the start to carry over all the armour and weapon customisation options you have previously unlocked into this DLC.
The top-down perspective that caught the eyes of players when first announced comes into action straight away during the opening cutscene. The Lost Gods plays less like the open-world stylings of everything else to come before it, and more like a dungeon crawler, warts and all.
As expected, there is a lot of loot for you to collect now the game has transitioned to a dungeon crawler. Alongside some new gear for Ash, your resources pouch will keep track of plenty of various trinkets that can be found in the world or dropped from enemies. These drops have a couple of uses. Firstly, they are used at altars as Offerings or to upgrade abilities. Offerings can be as simple as saving the game – which requires one fig to be able to do so – right up to buffs for Ash. For example, the Boon of Hermes will reduce stamina usage of navigational skills (jumping, gliding) by 30% for 25 minutes. This buff requires three plumes, three flower nectar and 100 blue crystals.
Secondly, there are Essences that you can equip to individual skills and Godly Powers. This aspect isn’t well-explained in the game but isn’t as confusing as it initially appears either. Each skill you unlock has a number of slots locked away in its customisation menu. You can spend resources to unlock the slots and then equip an Essence in that slot. There are five Essences: Air, Fire, Earth, Water and Chaos, and depending on which slot they are placed in, they will act differently. For a DLC, this is an incredibly deep customisation menu between the Essences and Offerings; one that you can spend a long time delving into and producing some highly specialised builds should you choose.
Ash starts the DLC much like Fenyx did, with very little at her disposal. It takes over an hour before you even get the ability to climb for example, but many of the powers you unlock will feel very familiar to you once they become available.
There are some new abilities though, which come hand-in-hand with a couple of new enemy types. A feature that was crucially missing from the previous DLCs, new enemies include one that burrows into the ground and avoids attacks. Thankfully then, Ash has in her locker an attack that slams the ground, popping up enemies with a deadly area of effect and leaving them open to an attack.
Another enemy will hover slightly above the ground on a cloud of water sending powerful waves towards you. Still, it is far less annoying than the other flying enemy in Immortals Fenyx Rising.
An attempt has also been made to bring the humour back to Immortals. Fenyx will be in constant communication with Ash and this mentor role shows a different side to them. It brings back a feeling of Zeus and Prometheus commentating on things with their bickering and humorous anecdotes. This is one aspect which makes a welcome return.
It can’t be an easy gig changing things as fundamental as the type of game you develop without losing your identity, but Immortals Fenyx Rising: The Lost Gods on Xbox manages this so well. It feels like a piece of DLC that attempts a lot of ideas that didn’t quite make the cut in the main game, such as the Essences or even the dungeon crawler idea itself. Yet it is easily the best DLC of the three post-release offerings and should hopefully leave Ubisoft with a couple of pleasant headaches when it comes to developing a sequel. Should they stick with Fenyx or Ash, or more importantly, stay open-world or explore another dungeon crawler?
You can pick up Immortals Fenyx Rising: The Lost Gods DLC from the Xbox Store
