Bret Robbins

Immortals of Aveum launched with mixed critical reviews and went on to be a financial flop.

It continues to be a difficult time at Ascendant Studios, the developers behind last year’s magical shooter flop Immortals of Aveum, as it’s claimed that the studio have now furloughed most of their staff - only a matter of months after almost half of their employees were laid off.

Ascendant Studios has reportedly been hit with another major blow. The studio, which released its debut title Immortals of Aveum last year, seems to have furloughed the “majority” of its staff, which means they have been placed on indefinite leave without pay, but continue to be employed by the company on paper.

Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios has reportedly furloughed the majority of its staff.

Over six months ago, independent developer Ascendant Studios promised to bring AMD FSR 3 to the console versions of Immortals of Aveum. No console game so far includes any frame generation technique, making this a world-first.

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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.

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.

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.

Immortals of Aveum was the debut game of Ascendant Studios, an independent developer with triple-A ambitions. Founded by former Electronic Arts and Sledgehammer Games Creative Director Bret Robbins, the studio wanted to deliver a sci-fi single player shooter focused on magic, and it partnered with EA to publish the game.

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.

A new report sheds some light on just how much EA invested in its single-player FPS Immortals of Aveum, which received mixed reviews and was deemed a financial flop.

Immortals of Aveum might get a new lease on life through a subscription service.

Fantasy shooter Immortals of Aveum failed to hit sales expectations due to the sheer number of games coming out at the same time.

When Immortals of Aveum, the EA Original FPS from Ascendant Studios, launched back in August, I wondered if it would be buried under the weight of higher-profile releases like Starfield, and apparently I was right to.

Immortals of Aveum, the recent first-person magic shooter, is likely coming to Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus at some point.

Immortals of Aveum was one of the most promising games of 2023, reflected by how they managed to get Electronic Arts as its publisher. However, its financial failure upon release led to its developer, Ascendant Studios, having to play off 45 % of their employees.

The CEO of Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios says that poor game sales due to a crowded release window were what led to nearly half the team being laid off.

The CEO of Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios has said releasing the game during such a busy window «100 percent» contributed to its poor sales figures.

Immortals of Aveum didn’t get nearly as much traction as developer Ascendant Studios had hoped it would – something that had pretty disastrous consequences for the studio in the form of significant layoffs – but it looks like the developer is looking to put the game on PlayStation and Xbox’s subscription services in an effort to attract a larger player base.

First-person «magic shooter» Immortals of Aveum is free to try courtesy of an all-new demo.

Immortals of Aveumwill be receiving a free update which is set to drop on November 16. This update, called «The Echocollector», promises new content, gear, and lore as in addition to a New Game+ mode and an ultra-challenging Grand Magnus difficulty. 

Almost half of the entire workforce at Ascendant Studios has been laid off as a result of poor sales for its magical FPS Immortals of Aveum. Speaking to Polygon, three employees at the developer said «nearly half of its staff» was let go on Thursday, with bad sales of the game cited as one reason why. Sources claimed around 40 people were laid off from a studio that had 80 to 100 employees.

Ascendant Studios, the developers of EA’s first-person-shooter-with-spells Immortals of Aveum, has laid off dozens of staff just weeks after the game’s release.

Just weeks following the launch of Immortals of Aveum, developer Ascendant Studios has laid off approximately 45% of its team, according to a report by Polygon’s Nicole Carpenter and testimony from some of the impacted employees. Ascendant CEO Bret Robbins explained the layoffs in a Twitter post as “a painfully difficult, but necessary decision that was not made lightly.”

Ascendant Studios has laid off nearly half of its staff less than a month after the launch ofImmortals of Aveum due to poor sales.

Ascendant Studios, the developer behind the EA published Immortals of Aveum, has laid off almost half of its staff.

California-based Ascendant Studios has laid off 45% of its employees.

Ascendant Studios, the California-based AAA game studio known for the recently released first-person shooter game Immortals of Aveum, reportedly suffered significant layoffs that have essentially halved the team's size.

Developer Ascendant Studios—which recently released Immortals of Aveum—has announced that it is laying off around 45 percent of its team. Studio CEO Bret Robbins made the announcement over social media platform X, calling it a difficult but necessary decision.

Just a few weeks after the release of its debut game Immortals of Aveum, a fantasy FPS that replaces guns with magical spells (that feel mostly like guns), Ascendant Studios has laid off nearly half its staff.

Ascendant Studios, the developer behind the recently released Immortals of Avenum, has laid off nearly half its staff. The news was first reported by Polygon, and confirmed by CEO Bret Robbins shortly after.

Immortals of Aveum hit PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC just weeks ago. We had a great time with it, giving it an 8 out of 10 in our review. Today, developer Ascendant Studios laid off approximately 45 percent of its staff. 

One former developer said the magic-based FPS is likely one of EA's worst-selling Originals.

Half the staff of Ascendant Studios was laid off, according to a new Polygon report. Around 40 (out of an alleged 80-100 people) were reportedly cut from the studio, whose debut title Immortals of Aveumreleased in late August. 

Nearly half of the development team behind the EA-published Immortals of Aveum has been laid off.

Immortals of Aveum creator Ascendant Studios has laid off nearly half of its staff, according to three people at the studio. Workers estimated that before the layoffs the studio employed 80 to 100 people; around 40 people were laid off. Ascendant CEO Bret Robbins announced the layoffs in a meeting on Thursday.

When Immortals of Aveum was revealed last year, director Bret Robbins described Ascendant Studios’ first project as a “fantasy version” of Call of Duty, swapping helicopters for dragons and rocket-propelled grenades for fireballs. I initially thought this was just a clever bit of marketing, seeing as Robbins previously worked on Call of Duty at Sledgehammer Games, but after playing through Immortals of Aveum, I’m amazed at just how fitting this characterization turned out to be.

You’re playing a Call of Duty level, and then a dragon flies overhead.

Fandom threw a big party to kick off San Diego Comic-Con this year.

The release date for Immortals of Aveum is hurling closer, and developers Ascendant Studios are teasing more details of what fans can expect from the larger narrative of the deep world the team has created. The team has been doing their best to share as much as they can without spoiling the larger story surrounding the Everwar, the larger conflict in the game.