Making a single-player magic shooter in a multiplayer military world

gamesindustry.biz:

When Bret Robbins left Sledgehammer to start Ascendant Studios in 2018, there was little doubt about what kind of game his new operation would specialize in.

"I'd been working on Call of Duty for a number of years and I largely directed the single-player campaigns for that," Robbins explains to GamesIndustry.biz. "Single-player is something I've done my entire career, going all the way back to Crystal Dynamics and games like Blood Omen 2 and EA, where I was the creative director on Dead Space. So I knew that if I had the opportunity to start my own studio and make my own game, single-player would feature prominently in one way or another."

The end result is the multiplatform Immortals of Aveum, set to launch July 20 through EA Originals. The game combines Robbins' focus on single-player, his acumen with shooters from his tour of duty on Activision's flagship franchise, and… magic?

"As far as it being a magic shooter, the impetus for that came from my time on Call of Duty and just learning how to make a great, big-budget, mass market shooter, and then looking around and not seeing anyone doing that in the fantasy space," Robbins says.

"That seemed like a real missed opportunity. It was a game I really wanted to play, and eventually it was a game I really wanted to make. Fortunately, I had an investor who agreed with me, so in 2018 we founded the company really just to make this game, Immortals of Aveum."

It was an interesting decision to make in 2018, after years of hand-wringing about whether the format was still viable in the AAA space. 2018 was the year that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 decided to skip the traditional single-player campaign to no ill effects, but it was also the year games like God of War, Marvel's