Immortals Fenyx Rising DLC Interview: Julien Galloudec
Immortals Fenyx Rising occupied an interesting spot when it launched in late 2020, with its mix of Breath of the Wild-style exploration and tongue-in-cheek humor proving divisive to those who felt the latter was too invasive. Ultimately, the core game would be well-received, and it's now in its post-launch cycle of DLC offerings to help sweeten the deal for existing players and would-be heroes.
Immortals Fenyx Rising: Myths of the Eastern Realm is a bold departure for the game, which previously centered largely on a different mythological inspiration to tell its story. As the DLC name would suggest, Myths of the Eastern Realm is based on Chinese mythology, and even features an entirely new character for players to guide through the world. Screen Rant recently interviewed Immortals Fenyx Rising director Julien Galloudec to discuss what sort of challenges come with something like Myths of the Eastern Realm, as well as how to preserve what users already enjoyed about the base game.
Immortals Fenyx Rising has already released one DLC with A New God. Myths of the Eastern Realm seems to promise a much different experience - what was the goal with the first DLC, and has that goal changed at all with the second?
Julien Galloudec: From the beginning, we wanted to use our post-launch content to explore new horizons with this new IP, in terms of game experience and lore. We want to show that it’s a brand that has a lot to offer and provide a new playground for the players and developers. While the first DLC is about pushing the limits of the main game and a new chapter of Fenyx’s saga, we wanted to explore a new type of mythology and a new hero with the second DLC. We were already working with Ubisoft Chengdu, so it was a great opportunity to explore Chinese Mythology.
Immortals Fenyx Rising will be adding a new explorable area in Myths of the Eastern Realm. Have there been any lessons you’ve carried over from fan response to the base game’s map design that helped inform how you laid out the new area? What can players expect?
Julien Galloudec: We created new puzzles as well as ingredients that can be found in both the open world and in the Sky Palace dungeons, and the intention was to allow players to build off their experience playing the main game and other DLC. We have a new puzzle, Musical Challenges, for example, that sees the player ringing Chinese chime bells in a specific order that tests their accuracy and dexterity.
Obviously it’s more than just a change in scenery with Myths of the Eastern Realm. What type of gameplay opens up for players now that Ku and martial arts combat will be added to the Immortals Fenyx Rising?
Julien Galloudec: As a DLC, our aim was to build off of the key pillars from the main game—combat, exploration, and puzzles—while bringing something new to the table in a way that would allow us to express iconic or symbolic aspects of Chinese culture. For example, when tackling combat, we tweaked the timing and animation of our hero’s attacks to better match Wushu style, reworked the Godly Powers with a Chinese myth framing, and introduced the God Seal system to give players already familiar with the main game an additional parameter to consider combat. Our puzzles also adopted a similar approach, such as the Bagua puzzles, in which we reconfigured the constellation puzzles, but with a thematic focus on Chinese philosophy on the natural world over astrology.
Fan reception to Immortals Fenyx Rising was pretty positive, and a lot of people were particularly fond of the way the game treats myth and legend. Can we expect the same lighthearted tone in the upcoming DLC? Anything that might be different in an unexpected way?
Julien Galloudec: We decided to not stray too far away from Immortals Fenyx Rising’s charm and humor, as well as the stakes established by the main game. Our goal was to offer some twists to the patterns set in the main game and tie each character’s involvement closer to the overarching story of the DLC to create more memorable moments and characterization.
What are some of the challenges the team has faced in making Myths of the Eastern Realm feel different enough from the base game? Introducing a new hero and area in DLC seems like a tall task.
Julien Galloudec: We wanted to offer an extension of the main game and give players more of what they love about Fenyx’s adventure, but in a new light, with a different setting, hero and storyline based on Chinese mythology. Our goal was to extend the Immortals Fenyx Rising universe and explore a new mythology, while serving our players a fresh and captivating adventure that gathered all the gameplay ingredients they loved in the base game.
What sort of challenges will players face with Myths of the Eastern Realm? Is there any particularly difficult content coming in the DLC that veterans or hardcore players will look at and kind of go, “oh yeah, that’s for me”?
Julien Galloudec: Players will need to master Ku’s unique fighting style and abilities, inspired by Chinese martial arts, to defeat new enemies and monsters from Chinese mythology.
Let’s say Myths of the Eastern Realm does very well, and fans really enjoy Ku’s story and gameplay. Is there ever a chance Immortals Fenyx Rising produces larger content based on a new hero introduced through DLC if they get popular enough?
Julien Galloudec: We’re currently focused on delivering Immortals Fenyx Rising post launch content.
Finally, I’m curious if there were any elements of Chinese mythology the team really wanted to include in Myths of the Eastern Realm that didn’t really fit the DLC’s scope or themes. With so much history to work with, how do you decide where to focus on?
Julien Galloudec: The myths of China are intimately important to us and there are so many amazing mythos and folktales just waiting to be brought to games. We created a game and a story based on a cultural understanding that is something we’ve lived through and shaped how we view the world, and the myths we’ve collected in the game are an expression of that.
The myth of Nuwa patching the skies exists in multiple forms and versions, all amounting to basically a few paragraph’s worth of text. Similar to Greek mythology, the flow of Chinese myths can be divided into two periods: the age of myth, where events and individuals are more idealized and abstract, then the age of heroes, where stories become more grounded and tied to the historiography of Chinese history. We chose the earlier age of myth in Chinese mythology, as it is mostly unexplored territory and it granted us freedom to provide our interpretation of the myths, while allowing us to pay respect to the key foundations of these tales.
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