Immortals of Aveum dev “heartbroken” as almost half its staff laid off

pcgamesn.com:

Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios has laid off nearly half of its staff as the recently released magical FPS game struggles to find an audience. Ascendant Studios CEO Brett Robbins confirms that “about 45%” of its team has left the studio, less than a month after the launch of Immortals of Aveum.

Founded in 2018 by Robbins, previously a creative director on both Dead Space and Call of Duty, Ascendant Studios started out with a team of former Electronic Arts veterans, who were later joined by a large percentage of the developers from narrative experts Telltale Games when that studio went bankrupt in 2018. Immortals of Aveum, its first release, was released August 22, published under the EA Originals program.

Sadly, despite a pretty original setting and a stylish world packed with flashy visuals built in Unreal Engine 5, Immortals of Aveum landed to a somewhat lukewarm critical response, and the game’s struggles to run smoothly on all but the most high-end systems meant it left a bad impression with many of those who did try it. Tracking site SteamDB reports a mere 67 concurrent players on Steam at the time of writing.

In a post to Twitter (now X), Robbins calls the move “a painfully difficult but necessary decision that was not made lightly.” He reassures that the team is “supporting those affected in every way we can, including comprehensive severance packages and job placement assistance, as well as support services for those who remain.” He encourages other studios looking for “proven UE5 artists and engineers” to reach out to the team to make connections.

“I am so proud of what our independent development team has accomplished with Immortals of Aveum,” Robbins continues. “Together we’ve created a new