Absurd Ventures, the company founded a few years ago by longtime Rockstar mainstay Dan Houser, has announced a new studio under its umbrella. Called Absurd Marin, the studio’s initial team consists of several former developers from Ascendant Studios’ ill-fated Immortals of Aveum.
Yes, that’s Aveum’s Immortals, which launched last year along with a ton of other interesting stuff, but for a myriad of reasons, this unfortunate thing happened, sales didn’t live up to the rather high budget that executives had set for it, and Ascendant subsequently laid off staff, which is clearly not what any reasonable person, no matter what they think of the game itself, wants to see.
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Now, Bret Robbins, director of Immortals and co-founder of Ascendant, will lead Absurd Marin (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz), which will consist of “about 20 developers from the core team of Immortals of Aveum” and will work on a “story-driven adventure game.”
As of now, the game appears to be in the early stages of development, so its name has not yet been announced. It is different from the game being developed by Absurd Ventures, which is based on a universe called “A Better Paradise”, which you can hear the name in the 12-episode audio series that Absurd is developing.
Back in May, some job postings may have provided a better idea of what the game made by Absurd’s main studio might look like or involve, although the company has remained highly secretive about it so far.
While we may have to wait a while for more information, it’s nice to see some of the Immortals developers get a chance to try their hand at making other games. This time last year, Ascendant laid off “about 45%” of its staff after a former Ascendant employee claimed that no one was buying the magic shooter.
“I haven’t seen a game as memorable as Immortals of Aveum in years,” our own Connor Makar wrote in his review of Immortals. “Developed by Ascendant Studios, the game looks to combine some classic FPS action with some clever spells. It’s certainly an interesting pitch, but sadly it doesn’t deliver in a particularly exciting way. Immortals of Aveum is a middling adventure that happened to be released at a time when several games were shaking up the industry.”