Immortals of Aveum director says magical FPS flop could find cult success like Dead Space in the future

rockpapershotgun.com:

Immortals of Aveum saw a very rough debut last summer, with the first-person magic-shooter from new studio Ascendant and EA reportedly suffering poor sales and mixed reviews - resulting in almost half of its developers being laid off mere weeks after its launch. Despite being a reported $125 million flop that “no-one bought”, its director believes that it could still go on to find an audience yet.

Ascendant studio head Bret Robbins told GamesIndustry.biz that part of Immortals of Aveum’s struggle was due to its arrival in the midst of a packed summer, launching shortly after Baldur's Gate 3 (the result of that game’s sudden move up the calendar), the same week as Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon and less than two weeks before Starfield. That was despite the game being delayed from its original release date to add some final development polish.

“We absolutely got lost in the noise,” Robbins said. “Although the game was better, the timing was worse.”

Robbins didn’t ascribe all of Immortals’ difficulties to its release window, however, stating that putting out a brand new IP that people were unfamiliar with - even with a reported $40m of marketing help from EA - contributed to its mixed critical reception.

“I've never worked on a game that got both 4s and 10s,” he said, comparing it to his past work on the Call of Duty series where “people knew what Call of Duty was”. “I think that can be attributed, to some degree, to it being a new IP.

“We were a fantasy shooter, and we clearly got some reviewers who don't like shooters. Maybe they were surprised by it. New IPs face that. People are going into it blind.”

Whether you agree with Robbins or not - personally, I’m not entirely convinced by the argument that people struggled to understand the simple concept of “FPS but magic” - the director remains optimistic that in time more players will give Immortals of Aveum a chance, helping it to find a cult following in the years to come.

“The story of Immortals isn't written yet,”