In a recent interview, the founder of Ascendant Studios, the Immortals of Aveum developer who recently laid off 45% of its workforce, revealed that the company has ‘more projects’ in the pipeline. This includes a further exploration of the Immortals universe and then whatever comes beyond that.
The studio’s founder, Bret Robbins – who was also the director of Immortals of Aveum – touched on the recent failing of his game, discussing what contributed to the rapid downfall of the studio’s debut title.
‘Learn More From Failures’
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry, Bret Robbins opened up about Immortals of Aveum, talking frankly about how the game failed. It was just days ago that copies of Immortals of Aveum were being sold for just £1 in a UK supermarket chain, and since the game dropped in August 2023, it has almost completely faded out of relevance.
You learn more from failures and mistakes than successes. People should hear all sorts of stories, not just about the huge breakaway hits, but also when things don’t go so well. And that doesn’t mean they’re not good, and it doesn’t mean that story shouldn’t be told.
Robbins explained that Ascendant was more than aware of the stacked schedule of releases being dropped in the latter half of 2023, including Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Armored Core 6, Starfield, Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Spider-Man 2.
In one line, Robbins said, ‘We got absolutely lost in the noise.’ He explained that a delay put in to ‘polish’ the game ultimately made the timing situation worse, and at one point, the studio was considering pushing the launch back to February 2024.
It was an overwhelming amount of competition for Ascendant, even with the full backing of Electronic Arts:
It was a murderer’s row of big games, and we are a new studio, people didn’t know who we were. There are some questions around whether our marketing was targeting the right people or not. We just didn’t raise the awareness we needed.
Despite early trailers being met with a fairly positive response and Ascendant pushing out a title that could be considered genuinely innovative, Immortals of Aveum ultimately fell flat in a dramatically short time.
While Robbins didn’t disclose what projects the team at Ascendant Studios is working on, he did ensure GamesIndustry that there are more games in the production pipeline.
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