Immortals Fenyx Rising: Myths of the Eastern Realm

Immortals Fenyx Rising's Myths of the Eastern Realm DLC is a noble effort by Ubisoft Chengdu to infuse new and rarely touched upon mythology into the mainstream of games. Though mainly a reskin of the base game, fans should enjoy this godly romp.

Immortals Fenyx Rising: Myths of the Eastern Realm features a new story, protagonist, and world to explore. It works well, even if it feels a little hodgepodge.

Ku's exploits clearly do not have the narrative balance of the Greek adventures, and do not add big variations to the gameplay formula, but they prove to be a solid and pleasant extension, a digression inside a very suggestive myth that deserves to be fully explored, waiting for the release of The Lost Gods, the last act of the Season Pass ready to lead us back to Ancient Greece.

The second DLC of Immortals Fenyx Rising is here. We fly to China for a shorter but always successful adventure.

In the end, Myths of the Eastern Realm feels like an abbreviated version of the core Immortals Fenyx Rising experience. The main character and the gods have been swapped out, but little has changed in the overall feel. It's not a bad expansion by any means, and if you enjoyed the original, this is a good excuse to fire up the game again to explore a new region. The superficial treatment of the underlying content feels like a real missed opportunity. Given the care that Ubisoft typically puts into research for its games, Myths of the Eastern Realm comes across as more akin to Cliffs Notes than a novel.

The formula remains strictly identical to that of the original game and while it is still very enjoyable, we probably would have liked an ounce of madness, a hint of additional risk-taking.

Immortals: Fenyx Rising - Myths of the Eastern Realm marks the return of the game back to the more open-world adventuring as opposed to the instanced puzzle-solving of A New God. However, the DLC does not manage to differentiate itself enough to stand tall. While visually stunning and delving into the rarely touched Chinese mythology, Myths of the Eastern Realm, the expansion feels much more subdued and even a bit unsure at times, especially when it comes to humor.

Although Myths of the Eastern is a very attractive idea because there are not many videogames that delve into Chinese mythology, the DLC is poorly executed and feels like a skin placed on Immortals Fenyx Rising. The story is interesting at times, but there are no adjustments to the game mechanics nor added value to the overall experience.

Immortals Fenyx Rising - Myths of the Eastern Realm’s lack of ambition and inability to distinguish itself from the base game’s adventure is a bit of a letdown, really. Attractive as the Chinese-themed reskin may be, just underneath is combat, exploration, and puzzle solving that is functionally nearly identical to what we’ve already played, and the characters aren’t nearly as much fun. After spending eight or so hours completing the story I have little compulsion to come back and check off all the things I didn’t get to on the map – after all, that stuff wasn’t particularly compelling in Immortals Fenyx Rising, and given that Myths of the Eastern Realm does precious little to change things up, it’s not particularly compelling here either.

If you liked Immortals, this is basically the same game again, but shorter and with Chinese myths. It’s a shame that a different studio couldn’t, for whatever reason, make its DLC distinct from the base game, but if you want to experience a little bit more of Immortals Fenyx Rising, Myths of the Eastern Realm has you covered. It’s a disappointment, but it’s not a disaster.

With its ancient China setting, Immortals Fenyx Rising: Myths of the Eastern Realm could have expanded the main game's experience in a lot of meaningful ways, but Ubisoft Chengdu preferred to play it safe, presenting an expansion that expands very little. Lacking the good writing and the hilarious characters of the main campaign, not to mention any major gameplay change, this DLC expansion is a worthwhile purchase only for those who haven't had enough of the puzzle-solving seen in Fenyx's adventure. Everyone else will find this adventure in the Eastern Realm a little stale.

Conceptually promising, but more of an empty, shoddy mimic than anything else. Fans of the base game have already seen everything this has to offer.