Immortals of Aveum was a major AAA from EA that came and went. Some gamers may have literally not known that the game came out, after it generated hype from the trailer, since it barely gets talked about today. Now, some of the game’s former developers get candid about what happened.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, these developers, speaking under anonymity, did not mince words about what they think went wrong. But let’s get one thing out of the way now.
While a lot of stories in AAA games come up about how game studios are being overworked, or the management isn’t good at their job, that isn’t exactly what happened here. As explained by one anonymous developer:
“There’s plenty of layoffs due to gross mismanagement and greed (looking at you Embracer), but there’s also plenty that happen because this is a stupidly volatile market that requires mountains of capital to participate in at a professional studio level.
For all the things Ascendant did right – paying people well, an entirely remote studio, little overtime until the end, chill environment with lots of freedom to grow, respecting QA, hiring juniors, etc. – it did not work out.”
So it seems, Ascendant did good by their employees as best as they could. Some gamers may only remember or know that Ascendant fired some of their staff after it became clear that Immortals of Aveum wasn’t making its money back for the studio, or its publisher, EA. Now, we know that this story isn’t like all those others.
But if that wasn’t what went wrong with Immortals of Aveum, than what is the problem? Another anonymous developer speaks out:
“At a high level, 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 triple-A 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.”
What’s shameful is that Immortals of Aveum ticked many of the right boxes of what gamers say they want. It was not a sequel or remake, has no microtransactions, no open world grinding, and it isn’t too long to finish. This is the mismatch between what gamers say they will buy, and what they will actually buy.
Gamers may not like to hear that, but it’s definitely what the game publishers and especially their managers are paying attention to. For all the complaining and op-eds about live service, it continues to be incredibly successful for not just one, but a lot of developers and games.
While it’s true that Immortals of Aveum had some negatives, gamers probably slipped up on not buying this game more than they did. It definitely performed less well than many other games that gamers say they don’t want to play anymore, like Halo Infinite or Overwatch 2. It’s also a bad portent that gamers can’t online outrage away the worst parts of the game industry anymore.
