Immortals Fenyx Rising dev says achievements "should not require specific ways to play"

By Heidi Nicholas,

A New God, the first expansion for Ubisoft's excellent open-world action-adventure Immortals Fenyx Rising, arrived just under two weeks ago as the first of three major expansions, bringing six new achievements and taking Fenyx to Olympus on a quest to become a full god in the Greek pantheon. We spoke to associate game director Julien Galloudec, who told us a little more about how the team approached the task of designing achievements for Immortals Fenyx Rising and A New God.

“Achievements should be a reward for something you can do in the flow of the game,” Galloudec says, adding that the team used the same approach for A New God as for the main game itself. “Yes you can encourage players to go a bit out of their way, or to complete things. But it should not require specific ways to play, or things you can miss and cannot do unless you replay the entire game.” If you take a look through the 50 Immortals Fenyx Rising achievements, you’ll see that most do indeed unlock naturally as you explore and make your way through the story.

Some, like the Ornithology achievement, which asks you to unlock all the Phoenix skins, or Fenyx the Horseman, which tasks you with taming all mounts in the game, will need you to dedicate a bit more time to exploring the different regions of the game’s map or to completing Vaults of Tartarus, but they still don’t need to be rushed. You can play through the game at your leisure, and the mounts, Phoenix skins, and all of Fenyx’s other cosmetics will still be available whenever you feel like hunting them down. A fair number of achievements also revolve around Immortals’ over-the-top style of combat, asking for combos or for you to eliminate enemies in a specific fashion, but again, most of these will most likely unlock naturally as you unlock new abilities, taking out cyclopes, gorgons, and all the other beasties lurking around the island.

The Ornithology achievement in Immortals Fenyx Rising worth 78 pointsAcquire all Phoenix skins.

Puzzles and Vaults are a major part of Immortals and A New God, and we asked Galloudec why the team decided to focus on these gameplay elements in particular for the first DLC. “We’ve learned a lot while doing the Vaults for the main game,” Galloudec said, “and we also had some constraints on what we could do because of the player’s progression and overall difficulty level. So for the post-launch we wanted to push both our creativity and the level of challenge for players. A kind of endgame mode where we could go a bit crazy and push the limits. But we wanted more than just a Vault Pack. For us it was important to also see how Fenyx goes to the next level of her destiny, and it was a perfect fit between that story and our design intentions.”

A New God sees Fenyx attempting to earn a place amongst the Olympian gods by undertaking their trials. The expansion’s six achievements revolve around getting Fenyx through those trials, earning the blessings of the gods and picking up all the gear you can find as you go. Galloudec says these trials are designed to be “more challenging” than the Vaults in the main game, and that along with all the resources, gear, and weapons, “there are also bonus chests to find in each Trials, linked to the missing gods in the Olympus as well as a secret bonus trial.”

A New God is out now, but we still have two more major expansions to come — each of which, Galloudec has confirmed, will bring new achievements. The next, Myths of the Eastern Realms, introduces a new land and story based around Chinese mythology. The third piece of DLC, The Lost Gods, brings a new style of gameplay, with a brawler style of combat and a top-down isometric view. Although each of these expansions features a new playable character, Galloudec says Fenyx isn’t gone for good: “Fenyx’s story won't end with A New God.”

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Written by Heidi Nicholas

Hey, I'm Heidi! I've been a staff writer for TrueAchievements and TrueTrophies since 2019. I love open-worlders, RPGs, and fantasy games, am obsessed with tea, and forever loyal to The Witcher 3 and Red Dead 2.