Ascendant Studios, the California-based AAA game studio known for the recently released first-person shooter game Immortals of Aveum, reportedly suffered significant layoffs that have essentially halved the team's size.
Polygon broke the news, though CEO Bret Robbins later confirmed everything in a message shared on Twitter, mourning the loss of treasured colleagues while promising that the game will still receive future updates.
Today, we are heartbroken as we part ways with friends and colleagues at Ascendant Studios - about 45% of our team. This was a painfully difficult but necessary decision that was not made lightly; nevertheless, we have to make this adjustment now that Immortals of Aveum has shipped. We are supporting those affected in every way we can, including comprehensive severance packages and job placement assistance, as well as support services for those who remain.
I am proud of what our independent development team has accomplished with Immortals of Aveum. Together, we've created a new AAA studio, a new IP, on new technology, during an era of our industry when that is exceedingly rare. We've poured our passion into Immortals while wearing our hearts on our sleeves. The studio will continue to work that way as we support the development of this game and our Immortals IP moving forward with future updates and offers.
Clearly, the main reason is disappointing sales. While no figures have been shared yet by publisher Electronic Arts, the publicly available data from SteamDB isn't promising at all, with estimated sales ranging between 10K and 30K units. The extremely high system requirements and disappointing performance didn't help, and the mixed reviews might have been the final straw. In Wccftech's review, Nathan Birch rated Immortals of Aveum 6.5/10 and wrote:
Immortals of Aveum makes a solid early impression with engaging magic-infused FPS action and eye-catching Unreal Engine 5 visuals, but a predictable plot, irritating characters, and repetitive, by-the-books level design dims the game’s razzle-dazzle. Immortals of Aveum will be worth it for some shooter and fantasy fans, particularly at a discount, but don’t expect your memories of the game to live forever.
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