As game development budgets continue to balloon to an unsustainable degree, we’re beginning to see an increasing number of prominent examples of titles that have failed to make satisfactory return on their heavy investments. 2023’s Immortals of Aveum is one such game. Indie team Ascendant Studios’ single player first-person shooter was billed as a full-fledged AAA experience, but in spite of its sheen and production value, the game failed to meet commercial expectations, leading to nearly half of the studio’s workforce being laid off.
Ascendant Studios CEO Bret Robbins would go on to say that 2023’s packed release schedule contributed to Immortals of Aveum’s disappointing sales, and though that was very likely a factor, a developer who worked on the game has revealed the shooter’s development and marketing costs, and said that not only was the game unsuited to market demands (especially for its budget), but that it also failed to execute on its vision.
As per the developer, who spoke to IGN anonymously, Immortals of Aveum had a development budget of $85 million, with publisher EA spending an additional $40 million to market the game, for total costs of around $125 million.
“At a high level, Immortals was massively overscoped for a studio’s debut project,” the developer said. “The development cost was around $85 million, and I think EA kicked in $40 million for marketing and distribution. Sure, there was some serious talent on the development team, but trying to make a AAA single-player shooter in today’s market was a truly awful idea, especially since it was a new IP that was also trying to leverage Unreal Engine 5. What ended up launching was a bloated, repetitive campaign that was far too long.”
In our review of the game, we gave it a score of 5/10, saying, “Immortals of Aveum starts promising but quickly suffers a litany of flaws. It does have some good-looking visuals but is often awkward when it’s not downright unwieldy to play.” Read the full review through here.
Immortals of Aveum is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Ascendant Studios CEO Bret Robbins has said that the game is likely to eventually release for Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, but there have been no official announcements on that front thus far.