After confirmation last month that a planned sequel to Ubisoft’s fun open-world game Immortals: Fenyx Rising had been cancelled, new details have emerged about the ill-fated project, including talk that it will combine elements of the Elden Ring and Wind Waker to create a very different follow-up to the original.
like Axios reportedCiting two sources familiar with the development of Immortals 2, work on the project (codenamed Oxygen) began in 2021. This was to be a significant departure from the 2020 original, abandoning that game’s Greek mythology focus in favor of an environment inspired by Polynesian Hawaiian culture. – As we’ve heard before. Other planned changes, according to Axios, included a more realistic graphical style, removing the first game’s narrator, decreasing the focus on puzzle-solving, and adding a story driven by player choice.
In addition, Immortals 2 is said to have aimed to shake up the open-world formula Ubisoft is familiar with, trading off an abundance of quest markers and directions in favor of an Elden-Ring-inspired set that requires players to discover their own path forward – by Track animals, navigate the stars or follow the wind – as they sail and explore imaginary islands inspired by the likes of New Zealand, Tahiti, Easter Island and Hawaii.
Axios sources say that players – once again controlling a highly customizable protagonist, with a choice of gender – will need to impress the Polynesian gods this time around, giving them elemental and shape-shifting powers, as well as new tattoos based on the direction their choices have taken in the story. . In addition, it is claimed that the players’ actions will affect the land around them.
Immortals 2, then, was a significantly more ambitious game than its predecessor, enough to get going that Ubisoft was weighing whether it should be retitled as an original game. Axios says the team at Ubisoft’s Quebec studio (working alongside Polynesian consultants) had put together several hours to play an in-house demo by this spring, but ultimately Ubisoft opted to shut down the work over cost concerns — a decision that took everyone by surprise. the team .
When Ubisoft confirmed it had canceled the project in July, it said the move was the result of “a redirection and reallocation of certain teams and creative resources within the Quebec studio to other unannounced projects”. “The expertise and technologies developed by these teams will serve as an accelerator for the development of these key projects focused on our biggest brands,” she added. Of course, Ubisoft has made no secret of the fact that it plans to continue developing its biggest titles, most notably Assassin’s Creed, after the financial challenges of recent years.
Its next big release will be Assassin’s Creed Mirage in October, and Star Wars’ promising open-world game, Outlaws, is set to arrive in 2024.
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