Immortals of Aveum's director hopes that players will discover the game for «years and years,» according to a new interview.
13.02.2024 - 08:43 / gamingbolt.com / Bret Robbins / Ea
As game development budgets continue to balloon to an unsustainable degree, we’re beginning to see an increasing number of prominent examples of titles that have failed to make a satisfactory return on their heavy investments. 2023’s Immortals of Aveum is one such game. Indie team Ascendant Studios’ single player first-person shooter was billed as a full-fledged AAA experience, but in spite of its sheen and production value, the game failed to meet commercial expectations, leading to nearly half of the studio’s workforce being laid off.
Ascendant Studios CEO Bret Robbins would go on to say that 2023’s packed release schedule contributed to Immortals of Aveum’s disappointing sales, and though that was very likely a factor, a developer who worked on the game has revealed the shooter’s development and marketing costs, and said that not only was the game unsuited to market demands (especially for its budget), but that it also failed to execute on its vision.
As per the developer, who spoke to IGN anonymously, Immortals of Aveum had a development budget of $85 million, with publisher EA spending an additional $40 million to market the game, for total costs of around $125 million.
“At a high level, Immortals was massively overscoped for a studio’s debut project,” the developer said. “The development cost was around $85 million, and I think EA kicked in $40 million for marketing and distribution. Sure, there was some serious talent on the development team, but trying to make a AAA single-player shooter in today’s market was a truly awful idea, especially since it was a new IP that was also trying to leverage Unreal Engine 5. What ended up launching was a bloated, repetitive campaign that was far too long.”
In our review of the game, we gave it a score of 5/10, saying, “Immortals of Aveum starts promising but quickly suffers a litany of flaws. It does have some good-looking visuals but is often awkward when it’s not downright unwieldy to play.” Read the full review through here.
Immortals of Aveum is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Ascendant Studios CEO Bret Robbins has said that the game is likely to eventually release for Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, but there have been no official announcements on that front thus far.
Immortals of Aveum's director hopes that players will discover the game for «years and years,» according to a new interview.
Immortals of Aveum saw a very rough debut last summer, with the first-person magic-shooter from new studio Ascendant and EA reportedly suffering poor sales and mixed reviews - resulting in almost half of its developers being laid off mere weeks after its launch. Despite being a reported $125 million flop that “no-one bought”, its director believes that it could still go on to find an audience yet.
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Immortals of Aveum is a game which will continue to be discovered by players for «years and years» like Dead Space, according to its director.
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Immortals of Aveum was one of those games that got swallowed by the unprecedented slew of triple-A releases that dominated gaming in 2023. A new IP from a new studio, the game didn't fare well at launch, sandwiched as it was between behemoths like Diablo IV, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Armored Core 6, et cetera. This led to Ascendant Studios having to lay off around 45% of its employees just a few weeks after the debut of Immortals of Aveum.
In Europe, Immortals of Aveum was the 469th best-selling game of 2023.
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