Immortals of Aveum was one of the most highly anticipated games of Summer 2023, with its creator Ascendant Studios, led by the former creative director of Dead Space and Call of Duty, and publisher Electronic Arts calling it a “groundbreaking” first-person magic shooter.
Unfortunately, Immortals of Aveum was dead on arrival thanks to mediocre reviews from critics, with the Metacritic score sitting at just 65% on PC. The PC version received the most negative feedback due to the game being unoptimized, with Immortals of Aveum peaking at just 751 concurrent players on Steam, which is almost unheard of for a AAA game.
Despite Immortals of Aveum not even being a month old at this point, the writing may be on the wall for Ascendant Studios as its CEO Bret Robbins announced the layoffs of nearly half its staff, close to 40 workers. According to reports, the poor sales were said to be the reason for the layoffs. It is unclear whether this will mean the end of Ascendant Studios, as the game was supported by EA and released under its EA Originals program, which sees the publisher fund the development of the game.
Immortals of Aveum was released on August 22, 2023, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X. Due to the game being published under the EA Originals program, it means that it will make its way to EA Play and Xbox Game Pass. So if you didn’t purchase the game due to the poor reviews and low player count, you will soon be able to try out the game for yourself, perhaps its inclusion on subscription services will breathe new life into it but only time will tell.
The future of Ascendant Studios remains unclear today and there is currently no news as to what the next game the studio is working on.
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