EA’s single-player shooter Immortals of Aveum came and went in 2023 without garnering much attention. A former developer revealed why the game was a bad idea from the start.
Immortals of Aveum came out in August 2023 and barely anyone noticed. The game, which was colloquially known as “Call of Duty with magic”, offered a single-player-only first-person shooter experience that wasn’t particularly bad nor especially good and didn’t really register on anyone’s radar. Aveum, which released in the middle of the Baldur’s Gate 3 hype and a few days before Starfield came out, has a metascore of 69 and was a commercial flop.
A new report by IGN now reveals why the game was “a truly awful idea” from the get-go, as one former developer put it. The report, which investigates the critical state of the gaming industry following thousands of lay-offs, reveals that the game cost a staggering $125 million to develop, with very little chance of recouping that massive cost.
Immortals of Aveum Was Destined To Flop
A former employee of Ascendent Studios, the developer of Immortals, talked to IGN about the issues with the game and how its poor reception led to over half the studio being let go. According to them, making the game wasn’t the greatest idea from the start:
Immortals was massively overscoped for a studio’s debut project. 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.
Well, put it like that, and I have to admit that those are some good points there. Aveum was a brand-new IP with a weird name, coming out in a year that was incredibly stacked with amazing, very popular games – including single player titles like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4, Baldur’s Gate 3 or Spider-Man 2. It never had a great chance at succeeding.
Add to that the fact that while there is demand for single player experiences, even in the shooter market, Aveum never seemed to shake off the “Call of Duty with magic” image and never managed to cause much excitement pre-release.
Putting that much money behind it then seems almost foolish in hindsight. The game only sold “a tiny fraction of what was projected” according to IGN and so Asendant Studios was unfortunately hit with massive layoffs.