In capping off my hands-on impressions with the game last May, I remarked of how developer Ascendant Studios had shown signs they’ddone their homework. That this was a team – a debut studio – with experience in the field of single-player, first-person shooters, but whom simply didn’t want to retread old ground. That instead of guns, bullets and boots-on-the-ground soldiers, we have sigils, magic and a more free-flowing, sandbox-structured style of play that while linear in some respect, still encourages to be bold yet mindful of the arsenal at one’s disposal and the skills with which one gradually accrues over time.
Easy as it may seem to wind up distracted by what’s otherwise different in Immortals of Aveum. The change in setting, premise, even gameplay systems, the truth of the matter is that for all its hopes of breaking from out the mold of tradition, Immortals of Aveum still winds up learning as many wrong lessons as it does right. That for all its confidence and grand stride on being a tightly-knit, character-centric, single-player campaign set against the backdrop of a grand, world-spanning narrative, little of the roughly fifteen-hour tale feels either meaningful or all that interesting. A world-scale, possibly world-ending cataclysm the game simply has the insufficient reach to see realized, with a (shall we say) style of writing that while not terrible, is bound to frustrate a fair few adamant they still want to give the game a fair chance.
Had it simply concluded at this – a lackluster narrative with ample instances of a new world playing by the same old rules – Immortals of Aveum might’ve been doomed to be labelled yet one more curious yet ultimately disappointing release for this year. Luckily for Ascendant Studios, the silver lining to all this is that they still find time to surprise in one or two ways that if nothing else, saves this from being a complete write-off. While it may ultimately do little to dampen the narrative’s forgettable story and characters – with what might be one of the most ridiculously sign-posted “this’ll be a twist reveal later on” at no less during the opening act – it’s the team responsible for level design that end up the real MVP’s of Ascendant Studios. To the point where Immortals finds a way to break from out the assumption it’s but a mere shooting-gallery styled series of levels and is in fact closer to a Metroidvania than any shooter should have any right to feel. When it puts its mind to it, Immortals of Aveum can delight.
Surprising as it was during preview that something as simple as the way your Sigil changes color/shape depending on which of the three types of magic selected gave me immediate Metroid Prime flashbacks. And this isn’t the only instance where the Metroidvania influences begin to creep in. Moments that have you solve puzzles during brief platforming segments in regions with significantly more verticality – the irony being that puzzle-solving in a shooter such as this is [be]fittingly one of the strongest areas. How, upon acquiring the Lash ability, the world of Immortals opens up significantly and properly reveals its nature as a series of interconnected environments you hop in, out and between. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but the fact it manages to cleverly reveal itself at an ample pace – let alone absolve itself of any potential concerns on feeling too linear – is a welcome inclusion that only bolsters the likely run-time.
A run-time that outside of the main missions can have you scouring for optional collectibles and treasure chests to hunt down. Chests that are usually tucked away off the beaten path – requiring you to take a second look at the way levels are arranged and how one’s increased roster of skills can be utilized. Granted, the game doesn’t always do the best jobs at communicating that a sealed-off area/door requires a later ability, but if nothing else, the game grants you the time and space to explore at one’s leisure. The story only progressing after returning to the main hub and triggering the next crucial cutscene.
That said, this surprising level of discovery is something players may find themselves having to go out of their way to find. And having to do so in an attempt to stave off the malaise that both the writing and sadly the combat eventually falls victim to. That’s not to say the combat of Immortals of Aveum is bad by any stretch. If nothing else, it has a sufficient amount of delight in being able to properly chain dealing damage coupled with perfectly-timed dodges and blocks alike. On top of managing the ample cool-down meters and abilities at your disposal. There’s a level of strategy to administer in balancing your three classes of magic and while a simplistic application, the presence of color-aligned armor/protection – meaning certain enemies end up immune to one or two magic classes until said armor is dealt with – does mean that players can’t simply go into any battle randomly firing what’s on hand.
But that’s precisely the issue: sooner or later, through a combination of repeated enemy types (i.e. where once you fought one of this type early on, now you have to take on three of them) and the somewhat sloppy implementation of magic as a potential tool, combat in Immortals can stumble into empty spectacle. Made worse by how excessive particle effects can be, to the point of obscuring much of a player’s view and the insistence of certain enemies moving as erratically as possible. An all too blatant effort to pad out combat’s run-time. Even so, there’s a system of attacking and defending that most players will want to engage with and subsequently improve on. Even without the added temptation of a series of endgame fights with optional bosses whose numbers are cranked so high, anything but the highest-level gear will result in near-one shot kills.
One of Immortals' more interesting systems in so far as its combat is the way it approaches loot and more specifically, the three main Sigils you equip for each magic class. Admittedly this is another part of the game whose positives are countered so easily by their accompanying negatives. Hard as it is to ignore a loot system that is frustratingly number-based to the point that it can become confusing as to whether a percentage of a value or a value itself is more important. +50 armor or 100% armor improvement? It shouldn’t be as confusing as it ends up being and all it does is potentially scare players away from the aspect that truly matters.
Namely that Sigils for each individual class come with their own custom fire rates and “ammo” capacity. While each magic class, Blue, Red & Green, generally falls into one of three weapon archetypes – semi-auto for Blue, close-range shotgun blasts for red and an SMG-esque fire-rate for Green, these properties can be tweaked by the acquisition of newer and higher-leveled Sigils. The catch is whether or not you, in one case, sacrifice a three-burst red Sigil for one with a single powerful blast that needs to be reloaded every time. Or in the case of Green magic: replacing its 30-round SMG property for one that is more a kin to a 100-round, high-rate Minigun that takes roughly half a second to actually start firing. It’s a small inclusion, but one you’ll constantly be changing to suit the situation as much one’s evolving play-style. The added bonus that any old or unwanted Sigils, much like your other gear, can be scrapped for currency to craft new or even upgrade existing items.
There are enough small or otherwise subtle features to keep one’s journey through Immortals a satisfying-enough trek. Enough so that all of the other, more major features – and here is where we finally touch on the presence of Unreal Engine 5.1 powering all this and by – don’t wind up providing all that determining a factor. A factor which, again, is evenly balanced between those facets that are generally impressive and those that leave the release quality of the game in a precarious state. At its best, Immortals does an amazing job at rendering even the finest of details – made even sweeter by the way Unreal’s Lumen global illumination manages, at one point, to make the pores on a character’s face or the textual difference between metallic and leather clothing pop.
If you have the monitor to support, especially when Immortals manages to hit that target consistency of a stable 60FPS (its only mode of play, given the lack of some performance/quality option) even during cutscenes, it’s an impressive feat. But again, when it manages it. Because as far as general performance, Immortals of Aveum is all over the place. The average frame-rate of cutscenes going anywhere to stable 60, to floating around the 30 mark. At its most extreme, a surprise transition directly from out of gameplay causing the frame-rate to tank to what must’ve been close to 15FPS. Worst of all, it can fluctuate in the same cutscene as it cuts from one shot to another. One moment it’s managing 60, the next instance it’s not, the next it’s slightly improved and so on.
Even the implementation of another of Unreal’s newest traits, its Nanite geometry system – meant to render the level of detail on specific objects based on distance – can throw up one too many ghastly mixes of high-resolution and low-resolution models in close proximity. Then there’s the required noting of having suffered three separate crashes during play – all occurring during combat – and needless to say, the game does not at present have the most stable performance. With or without the talk of this being the latest release to use Unreal 5.1 as its supporting engine.
Closing Comments:
Less a case of biting off more than it can chew, Immortals of Aveum instead serves up a mixed bag of notable creativity, dragged down by issues both narrative and technical alike. While future patches may go some way to iron out the uneven frame-rate and inconsistent visual quality, the same can’t be said for a brand of writing that’s at best tolerable and at worst, potentially off-putting. Minus one or two secondary characters you’d be happy to see stick around for longer, yet are sadly ditched in service of a plot with brief but ultimately unfulfilled promise. If nothing else, Ascendant Studios could’ve done a lot worse given the tone and the design intentions placed here. What’s left is a game that while doesn’t always put its best foot forward, eventually finds a way to loop back round to feeling curious as to what it has tucked away out of shot. Though it may trip over itself one too many times, Immortals of Aveum’s rewarding level design, puzzle-solving and potential for custom builds still offers a sufficient amount to carry this “magic-shooter” pitch through to credits' end.
Immortals of Aveum
Reviewed on PlayStation 5
