Ubisoft hit the end of 2020 hard with two major releases from the developer’s most popular franchises, followed by a bit of a surprise hit with the new IP Immortals Fenyx Rising. However, as much as some fans are throwing around critiques calling the new title a Breath of the Wild clone, Ubisoft may actually have some lessons to teach Nintendo for the sequel.
There are a number of ways that Immortals Fenyx Rising is similar to Breath of the Wild, especially when it comes to how the open-world is designed around difficult puzzles and intense combat. That being said, the major differences between the two is how they approach these puzzles and have added complexity to the combat, taking the much simpler world that Nintendo has built and adding new layers to it.
It’s these differences and complexities that Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 should take from Fenyx Rising if Nintendo wants to push the sequel to one of its most well received titles even further. The first game set the groundwork and is now a foundation for open-world titles, but new titles in the same genre, from Ubisoft’s new title to miHoYo’s Genshin Impact will continue to improve on this system. So, hopefully the sequel can do that same that so-called imitators have accomplished by building onto the systems in Breath of the Wild, starting with the new puzzles.
One thing that is impressive, but also limiting. from Breath of the Wild‘s puzzles is how they are all self contained and cover a wide variety of problems to solve with only a few simple mechanics, either found out in the field or within shrines. The result then becomes hundreds of puzzles that all have different ways of being solved, but reflect each other in enough of a way that eventually players are going through the motions to solve an all too familiar puzzle. This is especially true with the Legend of Zelda‘s Koroks, where everything needed to solve the puzzle is always in the immediate area and become increasingly repetitive over time.
What Immortals Fenyx Rising does to combat this monotony and repetition in its puzzles is often to add new levels of complexity to each one, and even having the overworld puzzles not be self contained at all. There are a few examples of non-contained puzzles in Breath of the Wild, like the Dueling Peaks shrines, but these are few and far between. Many of the secrets hiding in Fenyx Rising are locked behind puzzles that aren’t self contained and require players to journey out and return back to fully uncover everything the game has to offer.
If there is one aspect of Immortals Fenyx Rising that most players agree on, it’s that the combat is a heavy improvement over the much simpler style that can be found in Breath of the Wild. This is most commonly attributed to the new abilities that Fenyx Rising introduced to combat, giving players more options for how to deal with enemies than simply swiping their weapons and firing arrows. There are dozens of ways to handle encounters, between the wide variety of weapons and abilities, which is an area that Breath of the Wild can sometimes come short.
The combat in Breath of the Wild, like the puzzles, is built to be simple and accessible to all players, but with players’ skill at utilizing the simple mechanics allowing them to triumph over imposing enemies. However, even the most difficult Golden Lynels can be beaten with the same dodging mechanics as any other enemy, even if the exact attack patterns are more varied. This isn’t the case for Fenyx Rising, as many enemies require completely different tactics to get around shielding or can be led into choke points with abilities raining arrows and other attacks down on their heads.
Ability use extends beyond combat, with many traversal abilities have much more utility in Fenyx Rising than it does in Breath of the Wild, and the world has clearly been built around this design detail. The ability to lift high into the air before gliding, for one, is available in both games, however, Link is much more limited in how he can use this for travel, with charges, time limits, and needing to finish a full dungeon to find it. On the other side of this, players can make Fenyx dash forward and lead this movement into rising into the air and flying to transfer that momentum into flight.
As far as traversal abilities go in Breath of the Wild, Link can climb, glide, and use Revali’s Gale, which is all he needs to travel across Hyrule, but Fenyx has a lot more versatility. It’s small change that Immortals Fenyx Rising players need to learn in order to properly utilize, but can completely change how players interact with the world around them. There would need to be some changes made to Hyrule to make sure that Breath of the Wild players can’t exploit this type of increased traversal, but the effort goes a long way to make exploring feel that much more exciting.
Similar to how it wouldn’t have done any good for Immortals Fenyx Rising to simply put a new coat of paint over Breath of the Wild and be a complete clone, Nintendo shouldn’t start pulling ideas at random. It’s important to see what players enjoyed from Fenyx Rising that differs from Breath of the Wild in order to see where the sequel really needs to go. So, this is less of a direct lessons and copies to take from one game to the next, but a direction that the open-world genre is moving thanks to the games that have followed Nintendo’s lead.
Players will now be expecting for Breath of the Wild 2 to improve on each of the aspects that Fenyx Rising touched on, but the upcoming title still needs to retain its own identity to succeed. As a result, players can likely look forward to something completely different from the original, as well as these “clones” that have come out of Nintendo’s success. They may reflect each other to a degree, but those differences are going to be what leads to individual success among each game.
Immortals Fenyx Rising is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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