It comes about now and then that a project will drop at the wrong time to the wrong audience and turn out... wrongly. That is to say; not every failure was meant to be so for the pure merit of what it is, and not every success is due solely to the strengths of the pieces involved. Indeed much about the life we lived is based on the peripherals and inconsequentials of the world- who we know, where we are, the events around us. 'Merit' is a lie perpetuated by the fortunate to give the bereft some grim hope to persist in search of a brighter future that doesn't exist. Even the act of giving up is criminalised and blasphemed, because the rich can't stay afloat unless we are kneeling in the gutter for them to stand atop. But I'm sliding a bit away from the point- we're here to talk the Immortals game!
I think there's always a bad sign regarding a game when the name is a headache to say. Sure, there are many games out there with bad and caustic headlines that manage to worm their way onto 'classics' lists- just take 'Dragon Age: Origins' for example- a game with a subtitle that is completely and utterly meaningless outside of the context of referring to this being the start of the franchise. There is no other 'Origin' told throughout the game in any context- it's marketing pure and simple. But we don't ever think of the game's weird name because it's become a household name. But if you don't have a unbridled classic brewing in your little pot, a cleaner title is just better for marketing. Perhaps consider renaming 'Immortals of Aveum' to... well, literally anything else? I still have to look it up and I've done 5 or so articles on the little bugger- that's a problem!
But the name is not what sank Aveum. In a recent candid comment from a former EA developer, a spotlight was shone on the process of what the game was and how in many ways it and the team were set up to fail from the get-go. One of the nearly 50% of Ascendant Studio that were laid off from the team after the game's unfortunate failure called it a "Truly awful idea"; laying the blame of the game on "Trying to make a AAA single-player shooter in today's market." Atop of highlighting the game was a new IP and was filled with the bloat typical of a plus 100 million dollar budget. (including the 40 million for marketing) Again, we come back to the idea of the perhipherals of the situation. Not the talents of the team- but the 'timing' of the game. Let's examine that.
Now I don't need to interview the fellows themselves to figure out what they meant by 'today's market'. As it stands a lot of the top most player games are AAA shooters- but most important they are multiplayer shooters, that all leverage some sort of Live Service functionality. Warzone, Battlefield, Apex, Destiny, Halo. Some have increasingly limited Single Player offerings, but those are just to get players through the door and keep them busy when the servers are down. The multiplayer is the draw that keeps them hooked and buying cosmetics long enough for the investment to hit their return multiplayers that make shareholders salivate. If that is the game that rules the roost, then delivering an experience with no multiplayer portions whatsoever was tantamount to suicide, no?
Yet here's the rub- the cold water- things are never that black and white. If the world really existed in such a state that only things which were already popular could be successful, then innovation wouldn't be a concept; now would it? Do you think Divinity Original Sin dropped into a healthy CRPG market and did gangbusters there? No- it released to a world starved for heavy duty RPGs and thus capitalised on the market gap. Heck, what about DOOM 2016, which released during an equally heavy Multiplayer Shooter trend? (although 'Live Services' were not as industry-standard back then.) Admittedly, that game did have an online component- which died mere seconds after the game launched- but the Single Player portion? Instant classic. Best seller. Earned a sequel. So what is the difference between Aveum and DOOM? Or Wolfenstien? Or any of the other AAA shooters of the modern age that did well?
Honestly, Aveum just wasn't that good. Bloat, is perhaps the right term here as coined by this ex-employee- because the game had nowhere near the amount of content variety to justify the playtime. The whole wrist-based magic concept feels weak too, on a visual scale, which weakens the spectacle of action in a genre that thrives on visual spectacle. The story was over-stuffed, the characters were under-baked, the general art-style looked only a tad less overdesigned than Godfall- but still a total mess. It just felt as though the game lacked a heart, which was attempted to be paved over with style and passionless excess. If Aveum was an excellent game, it would have drawn eyes despite itself. Build it and they will come.
To which I will say that the game was a bad idea from the outset. First-off- it is utterly insane that this game wasn't a VR title. I've scoured the internet searching for some sort of VR release because for the love of god- it seemed made for it. I've even spoken with people who tested the thing, who themselves were baffled that it went to launch in the absolute state it was in! There has to be something said for a product not passing the sniff test from the most important demographic, the makers and the players. If they can't justify the product, then who is going to buy it at the end of the day? Be honest with yourselves! And more than half a year later- what is the game's legacy? It decimated a studio and stained EA's banksheet.
I bring this up to draw a line under what should be an example. Games can never be forced together out of elements that should work. Aveum was constructed by a team of industry vets, given a stupid amount of money, featured a talented cast of stars- but it didn't have a heart. Art will always be the story of people laid out before you- a heart peeled open. Any form of art lacking that heart is going to fail to reach, to impress and to succeed. That's just the basic aspect of creation in a nutshell. That is what is missing from titles like Suicide League. From studios like Ubisoft. And from industries like the music complex. Just have a little heart, will ya?
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