 I was excited about this last big piece of Odyssey's content for some time before playing it, interacting with Gods and Goddesses visiting Ubisoft's version of the Elysium Fields where all worthy heroes go after their deaths. That's the kind of high level gameplay experience I'm for, all the way in. And to tell you the truth, the fate of Atlantis' first episode Fields of Elysium did not disappoint, for the most part. What is this about? In short, a three-way gauntlet between Hecate, Adonis and the Queen of the Underworld herself Persephone. This is why the real good stuff is. These main players each have their own motivations and they're all crafted well and keep fidelity to what you might expect from the Greek mythology while looking at it through the usual Assassin's Creed prism. Hecate is sent by Persephone's mother, Demeter, to keep the Queen of the Underworld's company. Hecate is the Goddess of Witches and something of a manipulative puppet master, using Cassandra as well as Persephone's misplaced affection to her own ends. Whether that's because she wants Persephone to be done with Adonis or she wants Adonis all for herself, never quite becomes clear. As for her friend, Persephone, she is, as we hopefully all know, the Queen of the Underworld, in Hades' unhappy wife, the mercurial ruler of Elysium. She is a jealous Goddess who does not take kindly to Adonis upon whom she set her sights rebellion, seeing as she has got a classic textbook case of unrequited love. As for Adonis himself, this beautiful mortal, all he wants to do is to get his freedom from Elysium and return to his trist or love affair or whatever it is with Aphrodite. The fourth major player is Hermes, who is portrayed here as the brilliant inventor, a role usually overshadowed by his position as messenger of the gods. He is also playing the role of lovesick puppy doing whatever Persephone tells him and ignorant of her obvious luck of feelings for him. On his unhealthy obsession with Persephone, well, what can you say but when your god friend decides he wants to burn all humans for a woman, you say no. I thought Hermes was likeable, he has an easy smile, his loyalty to Persephone, while born out of selfish desire to get wit hair, is always an interesting, relatable narrative device. Plenty of smart men have been really, really foolish over beautiful and caring women, so why should gods be any different? Aphrodite and Adonis, I have to wonder what Aphrodite is like, vain certainly because we never see Aphrodite and obviously she is going to be very vain and that's the essence of her inmetology in popular culture, but we don't see her the entirety of this episode. All in all of her is from third party sources, mainly Adonis, but also the blacksmith spy who reports to her. I don't know what that was all about, I feel like someone was maybe planning of adding Aphrodite at some point and then they decided not to. At any point, neither of these two is impartial, both of them are head over heels in love with the goddess, but judging her actions, it's evident that she's using the blacksmith's poor full dad and that she's jealous and doesn't have any semblance of trust in Adonis himself while send a spy. On Persephone and Adonis, I have one more thing to say and that is toxic relationship 101, can't blame Adonis for deciding to hightail out Elysium. Outside the characters, we've got the map of Elysium itself and it is not in short of stunning. As the biggest four fairly sized regions of ancient Greece, it's a lot more fun in terms of what the developers could pull off here. Three of the shackles of the historical past, the environment, art team in particular pulled all the stops. All the art people were let loose and have created something special and gorgeous as a result. Fortresses filled with ease who warriors rise hundreds of feet above flowerfield crevices and fields. Teleporters allow you to climb forbidding mountainsides, saving you plenty of time in what would otherwise be holding shift and that were you for nothing shorter than two, three minutes. Butterflies and colorful vistas are to be found everywhere but also ruins old fancies of Persephone who rules over this land as a child over a sand castle. Once she loses interest, all areas of Elysium fall into disrepair. Here again the art team gets all the credit creating some hauntingly beautiful abandoned places on the map. I've never had quite as much fun exploring ancient Greece as much as when I was exploring Elysium fields. Another brand new element has to do with some powerful new ability variations now available after doing a challenge or four, some of which I will say are way more exciting than almost any old abilities you could pull off. The biggest problem this first episode had was early on it dangles the illusion of choice in Cassandra picking who she wants to ally herself with. That, it eventually becomes apparent, is not the case at all. And the pretense the game occasionally goes to, the morsels it throws you in terms of choosing outcome X over Y. Some optional quest makes things no better, especially after the legacy of the first blade whose biggest issue had to do with taking choice away from the player. It sucks that Ubisoft only thought of one way to progress from this episode into torment of Hades and that way demanded a certain outcome that you always end up at. Having said that, this was a fun experience one I regret not at all and I must have spent about 12 hours doing everything I could have done. After the legacy of the first blade, this was a return to form. With compelling characters, story and a gameplay loop I describe as familiar while also offering plenty of new elements. I know it's been over a year since it came out and I played this in the summer. But by god I said I'd do these videos and I'm going to finish them if it is the last thing I do on YouTube. Thank you for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please like, share, subscribe, ring that bell button for notifications. If you do, I'll give you a pretty penny. Or a new video, probably the latter. That's more likely. I don't have all that many pennies you see. Bye!