The magic shooter Immortals of Aveum, which failed in sales, had a very large budget, according to a former employee of Ascendant Studios. He shared his figures in a conversation with IGN.
Immortals of Aveum
According to the developer, the production of the game cost Ascendant Studios about $85 million. Electronic Arts, which published the shooter, spent another $40 million on its marketing and distribution.
"Immortals of Aveum has been greatly overestimated, given that this is the studio's debut project," the developer said. "Of course, there were big specialists in the development team, but trying to make a single-player AAA shooter in today's market was a truly terrible idea. Moreover, it was a new IP, and the studio was trying to master Unreal Engine 5. The result was an overblown, monotonous and protracted campaign."
Another developer, still working at Ascendant Studios, added that much more success was expected from the game. Good sales were predicted not only by Ascendant Studios and Electronic Arts, but also by a number of third-party publishers. However, real sales accounted for only a "small fraction" of the planned ones.
In September 2023, a month after the release of Immortals of Aveum, it became known about layoffs at Ascendant Studios. The studio had to cut almost half of its staff to stay afloat.
Let us remind you that Immortals of Aveum received not the warmest reviews. Critics on Metacritic rated the game 66-76 out of 100, depending on the platform. Her Steam rating was 75% based on 1,141 reviews.
Immortals of Aveum has not been able to achieve popularity. According to SteamDB, at its peak, 751 Steam users were playing it at the same time. At the time of writing the online game news, there are 44 people.
In November 2023, Ascendant Studios CEO Bret Robbins stated in an interview with Windows Central that the game sold poorly due to the poorly chosen time for release. Armored Core VI and Baldur's Gate 3 were released in one month with Immortals of Aveum, and Starfield was also released soon after. Although the studio understood that they would face high competition, it was impossible to postpone the release. In particular, because of the terms of contracts with partners. Robbins also noted that his studio is new to the market, and it was difficult for it to prove itself.