Immortals of Aveum is a departure from the types of indie titles usually published by the EA Original banner. While you could technically label Ascendant Studios an indie, it’s headed up by the former producer of the Dead Space franchise and staffed by numerous former Sledgehammer Games and Telltale Games employees. Aveum is one of the first major Unreal Engine 5 games to make it market, and in terms of presentation, it looks like something you might expect from an established AAA developer like Naughty Dog or EA’s own Respawn Entertainment.
So, does Immortals of Aveum mark the debut of a major new developer and franchise? Or is this fantasy shooter missing some key magical ingredients? Let’s examine this one for a spell…
Immortals of Aveum takes place in the titular Aveum, a fantasy realm in the final throes of a magical Everwar which has reduced the world to a series of shattered islands floating above an ever-widening chasm known as The Wound. Only two superpowers, Lucium and Rasharn, remain to battle it out and it seems the latter is closing in on victory as their charismatic leader Sandrakk seeks to choke off the very source of magic itself. Players take on the role of Jak (Daxter sits this adventure out), a fast-talking thief eking out an existence on the mean streets of Seren with his best friend Luna and some overly-precocious kids. Unfortunately, a Rasharn attack leads to the apparent destruction of this makeshift family and the awakening of Jak’s powers. It turns out Jak is a Triarch Magus with the rare ability to control all three of Aveum’s magic streams, and so he joins Lucium’s Immortals (who aren’t actually immortal, as the game frequently points out) with the goal of reaching his full potential and taking down Sandrakk.
While it’s clear quite a bit of effort has gone into crafting Immortals of Aveum’s world, all too often it just feels like a collection of stock fantasy tropes. The game ladles out plenty of dramatic cutscenes, but most of the game’s twists can be seen coming a mile away and don’t hit particularly hard when they arrive. Aveum’s dialogue will also ping a lot of cringe meters pretty hard. This is the kind of game where the main character, upon learning a huge secret that totally changes their understanding of the world, responds with “this secret sucks.” I suspect there will be a lot of comparisons between the chirpy writing of Aveum and the recently-released Forspoken, but at least the latter had the excuse that the main character was a fish out of water from another world. That isn’t the case with Aveum. Why is everyone constantly quipping even as their friends die and the world is plunged into peril? I can appreciate wanting to bring some lightness to the material, but Aveum’s characters come across as borderline sociopaths.
The surface-level appeal of Immortals of Aveum’s world extends to its presentation. As mentioned, the game is built on Unreal Engine 5 and can look fairly striking at times, with detailed environments and impressive lighting. That said, nothing feels particularly believable or lived in with most environments sticking to those overly-familiar fantasy tropes. At times the game can feel like a tech demo for UE5, or at least it would if it performed better. On PS5 Aveum only offers a single visual mode, and while it targets 60fps, the game doesn’t always stick the landing with some noticeable slowdown. FSR upscaling also seems to be putting in some serious work, with some scenes having an oddly washed-out, blurry look to them.
In terms of gameplay, Immortals of Aveum is essentially a fantasy-flavored Call of Duty. All the game’s weapons are powered by one of three color-coded brands of magic – Red weapons are essentially shotguns that dispatch heavy close-quarters damage, Blue weapons are your sniper rifles, and Green weapons fire off a barrage of homing strikes. In addition to this weapons triangle, you also have a shield, which blocks shots from all directions and a “Blink” move that allows you to evade incoming attacks. The shield lets you absorb a fair amount of punishment, but it also slows your movement speed and you can’t use it as the same time as Blink, forcing you to choose between shielding and evasion.
But that’s not all! Also at your disposal are Furies (special magical attacks gained by picking up mana crystals), Immolate (a particularly powerful attack unlocked if you dole out enough damage), and a host of other abilities like a grappling hook, stun beam, and more. Sometimes it feels like every button on the controller has its own separate mechanic attached to it. Immortals of Aveum’s action can be a bit overwhelming at first, but you should eventually get the hang of it. Combat works well enough with the shield/Blink mechanic offering some solid risk-reward and your guns delivering plenty of big, bright bombast -- these magic blasters are more than just colorful sparklers.
That said, while Immortals of Aveum’s action is fundamentally solid, there is some room for further polish and refinement. The three types of magic could be balanced better -- I mostly used Green weapons as their rapid-fire homing shots were just too effective to pass on, switching to Red if enemies really got up in my face. I used Blue less often, which seems to have been foreseen by Aveum’s developers, as they frequently throw enemies carrying shields that can only be broken by Blue weapons at you. You’ll also come across the occasional enemy that’s weak to Red or Green magic, but Blue-shielded enemies are the most common sight. The sheer flashiness of Aveum’s combat can also be a problem at times as more than a few times I died and had no real idea what got me as the screen was just so packed with particles, explosions, and other colorful debris.
The makers of Immortals of Aveum have boasted about the scope of their interconnected realm, and indeed, there’s a fair amount of see here, but don’t expect a true open world. Aveum is instead a collection of linear maps and a small handful of hubs stitched together with fast-travel portals. Think Borderlands, but without the occasional semi-open maps that series offers. While levels are very linear, there are a fair number of side paths and secrets sprinkled throughout, with the occasional need to double back once you’ve gained a new ability if you want to collect everything (although doing so can be frustrating due to the game’s spiderweb-like design).
Immortals of Aveum’s missions have a certain sense of forward momentum, but they also fairly quickly settle into a predictable pattern. Do a bit of platforming, clear the enemies out of an arena-like area, solve a simple puzzle that almost always involves shooting colored switches, repeat. While the game serves up a fairly wide array of maps/biomes, most of them are stuff you’ve seen many times before – the ice level, the lava level, ect. The game does occasionally get more creative, which is when it’s at its most compelling. One mid-game stage that tasks you with scaling a giant mechanical colossus as it does battle with a fleet of enemy airships leaves a solid impression, but nothing else in Aveum quite measures up to it. The later chapters of the game can become an outright drag, as the steady flow of new stages dries up and you’re instead forced to revisit places you’ve already seen. Later stages don’t offer much additional complexity, they just ramp up the challenge with more – bigger mobs, spongier-enemies, recycled bosses, ect.
If you’re looking for a solid challenge, the latter stages of Immortals of Aveum provide just that, but they can sometimes feel like a grind. The end result is a game that felt a little long, even though its campaign only clocks in at a relatively modest dozen hours. Granted, those who want to collect everything could spend over 20 hours, but the magic may wear off before then for many.
This review was based on a PS5 copy of Immortals of Aveum provided by publisher Electronic Arts.
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