Overview
Image: Electronic Arts / Electronic Arts
A former Immortals of Aveum developer says the $125 million game was too oversized for a debut.
According to a former employee at Ascendant Studios, Immortals of Aveum cost $125 million to develop. According to the former employee, releasing a game with such an enormous budget was “a really terrible idea.”
He claims that developing a single-player game with this budget was doomed to failure IGN
The employee said: “At a high level, Immortals was massively oversized for a studio’s debut project. The development cost was about $85 million, and I think EA contributed $40 million for marketing and sales.”
“Certainly there was some serious talent on the development team, but trying to develop a triple-A single-player shooter in today’s market was a truly terrible idea, especially since it was a new IP that was also trying to use Unreal Engine 5. What we ended up with was a bloated, repetitive campaign that was far too long.”
Although Immortals of Aveum stood out from other games and met certain player criteria, it still sold poorly.
One still-employed employee said: “It’s not a sequel or a remake, it doesn’t take 400 hours to complete, there are no microtransactions and no pointless open-world grinding.”
“Although not everyone loved it, it was reviewed pretty well, currently with a 74 on Open Critic and a Mostly Positive on Steam. Nobody bought it.”
The shooter Immortals of Aveum was released in August 2023 with average reviews. It was the studio’s first title. Due to low sales, around 45% of employees were laid off just a few weeks after the release.