More details on Ubisoft’s cancelled Immortals Fenyx Rising sequel emerge

More information has been shared about Ubisoft’s cancelled sequel to open-world adventure game Immortals Fenyx Rising.

As revealed by VGC last month, a follow-up game was in early development at Ubisoft Quebec, but company leadership ultimately decided to cancel it earlier this month due to perceived challenges around establishing the IP.

Now Axios has spoken to two sources familiar with the game’s development, who have shed more light on the project.

According to Axios’s report, the sequel – codenamed Oxygen – was going to be set in a fictionalised interpretation of the Polynesian archipelago, covering such locations as New Zealand, Tahiti, Easter Island and Hawai’i.

The protagonist would have been able to gain elemental powers from Polynesian gods, and would be able to shape-shift, while gaining new tattoos based on the choices made throughout the game’s story.

Rather than filling the open world with quest markers, and indicators on where to go next the plan for Oxygen was to remove a lot of these markers and make the player figure out themselves where to go by tracking animals, studying the position of the stars or following the wind.

One source told Axios that Elden Ring was a key inspiration for the project, because it too dropped players into a hostile world without obvious advice on where to go.

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Sources: Ubisoft has cancelled its Immortals Fenyx Rising sequel

UPDATE: Ubisoft confirms it's "reallocating some creative teams and resources within the Quebec studio"

The original Immortals, which was also developed by Assassin’s Creed Odyssey studio Ubisoft Quebec, received generally favourable reviews.

The original game saw players controlling a forgotten hero on a quest to save the Greek gods. Later, the game’s DLC explored Chinese mythology by having players take control of a new hero, martial artist Ku.

In January, Ubisoft said it had cancelled three unannounced games (not including the Immortals sequel) and was planning to strengthen its focus on its biggest IPs and live services following weaker than expected software sales over the holiday season.