New Details on Gods & Monsters’ Open-World Mythological Adventure

First announced at E3 2019, Gods & Monsters is an open-world, storybook adventure set in a vibrant, colorful land, the Isle of the Blessed. We now know a lot more about Ubisoft’s mythical new IP thanks to a new interview. During an interview Ubisoft conducted with itself, creative director Jonathan Dumont and senior producer Marc-Alexis Côté touched on several topics, including creating the game’s fully-customizable protagonist Fenyx, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Greek mythology.

Chiefly, Dumont reveals the game will take a lighthearted approach. The title is to be narrated by Homer as he tells the events of the game as a story to his grandchildren, so efforts to “poke fun at things” should be no surprise.

“We designed [Assassin’s Creed] Odyssey with special abilities, so we took that and put it on steroids for Gods & Monsters,” Dumont said in reference to the team’s new gameplay approach.

The game’s combat sounds fast-paced and varied, as players will be facing cyclopes, harpies, and the game’s antagonist, Typhon. In addition, Fenyx will have the powers of Gods at their fingers, with one example of this Godly power being the “Boots of Hermes, which allow you to double-jump and get to places you wouldn’t be able to access before.” The gear Fenyx wears will be customizable, but more details on that are being held for the future.

Dumont discusses how the team fell in love with the more supernatural elements of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey but felt limited due to the nature of the series. For them, Gods & Monsters is a chance to explore those ideas a bit further.

“The gods, the monsters, the legends, the myths are all great, but building an Assassin’s Creed game limits what you can tap into. During production, we started thinking, ‘what if we made something that’s 100 percent mythology? We could make a dramatically different game than we did before.’”

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey had a historian consultant, Dr. Stéphanie-Anne Ruatta, to help make sure the project never veered too far from reality. Dumont says this same historian also specializes in mythology and was asked to help out again for Gods & Monsters.

For more on the team’s last game, check out the Escapist’s review of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

Gods & Monsters launches Feb. 25, 2020 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One.