Immortals of Aveum Cost $125 Million, Branded a 'Truly Awful Idea'

Start small, if not at all. Seen too many developers with grandiose ideas that inevitably fail.

It being a AAA single-player shooter wasn't the problem, it looked dull and had poor marketing. They shouldn't be spending that much money on any game that is the first for a studio, it's ludicrous.

What year is it? We are still blaming a game being single player and a shooter for its failure? Pretty sure the best selling games last year were mainly single player. Maybe it's because it was a full priced game from a no name studio with one of the most generic names I've ever heard of.

I wouldn’t say that having a magic based AAA single player shooter was the problem, it was the budgeting and projections that sound like they were way off course.

And to have a third of its budget, a full $40 million, to be “marketing and distribution” sounds like an awful lot. I’m not in the know enough to say if that’s typical, but clearly it was too much spent on this project. I don’t remember any significant marketing at all. Where did they spend that $40 million?

I’ve heard decent things about the game and I know Colin really liked it. I’m curious enough to maybe try it one day

I think, from a shooter perspective, it's a really unique and fun game. Being singleplayer has nothing to do with it. They really need to start thinking how they spend so many doubloons making a videogame...the cost of development is getting ridiculous honestly

What amazes and horrifies me is a third of the cost was just marketing. Surely platform holders should work harder getting recommendations into people’s living rooms in order to reduce retail prices.

The tagline being "it's Call of Duty with magic" did not help its case at all, plus full price was a mistake. Too ambitious too quick

I thought it looked pretty cool… and did pick a copy up (though yet to actually play it). Was a pretty stacked year to release a game in though… unless it got a load of 9’s and 10’s, it was always gonna get overshadowed.

Sell it for a Tenner and I would snap it right up tbh

Maybe it was because the game just wasn't very good

40 million on marketing and all they seemed to say is that it was on Unreal 5, like anyone cares.

As a fan of the genre, I can't say this has ever appealed to me. It's sad for those that had to suffer from the ridiculous decisions and spending of those in charge

@PaperAlien you missed out, it was going for £5 brand new in Asda a few weeks ago.

I don't think it was because it was a single player shooter. Look at doom 2016 and eternal, or the demand for titanfall 3, or how well armored core 6 sold.

It was a debut IP and developer that had no brand recognition that no amount of marketing would make up for. It should have been smaller budget and priced a lot lower. Personally I liked the look of it and want to play it, but not at the price it released with the games that released around it. Now I'm just waiting for it to hit ea play so i dont have to pay extra for it

Subscription services are to blame. Games hardly sell anymore on Xbox because of Game Pass and nearly all the people on my friends list on PSN just play PS+ Extra games now.

A lot of people are just happy to play games that are part of a low cost sub service.

Maybe they should stop making sp games. It's obviously not worth it.

There's a free trail on ps5!
Got to see how "bad" it is...

Singleplayer shooter is one big win in these dark times of multiplayer s*itstorm, but you have to make it at least appeal. I'm still looking forward buying this game, but I suggest half of that marketing budget went on word "repetitive". It is great to make something new, but artificial prolongation by repeating something... that was almost whole PS3 era. It doesn't work anymore.

The game was fairly poorly received, seemingly because it was unoptimized on consoles and they released it in the middle of a year with Metroid Prime Remastered, Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, Hogwarts Legacy, Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy XVI, Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, and a massive dlc for Horizon Forbidden West. How could an unknown game from an unknown studio with technical issues possibly fail??

Unoptimized mess, expensive af, unknown IP, UE5 (most games running in this engine are a framerate dip fest), boring plot...this game was doomed from the start and it's all their fault

I don’t think it can be blamed on being a single player game, we’ve had some major single player games released recently which have been very successful, and on the flipside, big online games like Babylon’s Fall which have failed miserably.

Even though they admittedly tried something different, from what I’ve seen (I’ve not actually played it so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), it reeked of blandness, almost like they were too afraid to commit to their own idea. Possibly interference with people at the top too afraid to take risks. Forespoken looked the same.

I could be wildly off the mark here, so feel free to call me an idiot if so 😄

It was the repetition that killed it for me. I had fun for a couple of hours and then it wore off and crashed hard, and there was no great story or likable characters to fall back on. It also felt like a budget game with a AAA price tag.

@Shstrick I will also add Diablo 4 (say what you will but it had enormous hype and huge player base at start), Re:4 Remake, Lies of P and the massive 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty DLC for Cyberpunk 2077 if we count releases up until September (as you mentioned Starfield). All in all, yes it had no room to breath and to no one's surprise it flew under everyone's radar.

Price and the fact that it has 'coming to PS+ in a year or two' written all over it didn't help.

Thats why I didn't buy it and I'm sure many others! We've been trained to wait to purchase games because they'll be dirt cheap or on a subscription service soon enough! Unless it's an established IP or we don't want spoilers.

Plus we have waaaaay to many games freely available for the little time we have that it's hard to justify

It was a pretty good game. Every game that released around the same time as baldur’s gate 3 suffered. That’s the reason.

I seriously dont understand all the hate the game gets. I enjoyed the game it was one of the best looking games I played last year. It was a huge risk but least they tried something new and not another sequel, remaster or soulslike. But as others said have to question the £40million marketing budget what did this actually pay for?

@TrickyDicky99 Nah, that's too simple. Games still sell if they look appealing enough. Hell, even games that didn't necessarily have the highest expectations can still sell a bunch if they're actually fun, just look at the likes of Granblue Fantasy and Helldivers 2.

Immortals of Aveum's problem was it never excited anyone during previews, and then the game released and its critical reception only confirmed those early impressions. You can't get away with that unless you've already built up some brand recognition, which they obviously hadn't.

The game should have been a gacha based live service always online multiplayer battle royale and not a simple single player shooter

One of the basics of a product debut is: make sure the product is good and delivers, then spend twice the development cost on marketing. It might sound a bit dumb at first, but the more you think about the logic behind it, the clearer it gets.

@Sacrosanctus so many good releases during that timeframe that I forgot some of the best ones!

I don’t know too much, hardly anything really, about this “single player shooter”, which should appeal to me, but the title sounds like one of those GAAS games that released and was turned off last year which is why I probably ignored it.🤷🏻‍♂️

The story does remind me of “Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning” though. That was a single player JRPG, not a shooter, but it had a big budget and it failed miserably and it’s possible the entire company collapsed. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So they can blame whoever or whatever they want, but it’s on them for a small no name company to try and start with a big budget game, and they didn’t even have Curt Schillings name on the door.

https://whatculture.com/gaming/how-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-nearly-bankrupted-an-entire-state-2?page=4

Ah the blame game.

I bought Immortals on sale. I rarely buy games at full price if I can help it.

I platinumed it. While I agree that the main story was probably a little on the long side - I don't have any complaints about the game at all.

Why did it fail? It wasn't because it was a single player shooter. I think it failed because of the current subscription models and live service games. Everyone expects to pay very little for a lot. That works with an established IP. But with games trying to put a new idea out there... it is a recipe for disaster.

TL:DR - The video game industry is a mess which works to stifle new ideas. Go buy Immortals and play it.

I was very interested in this game but ended up staying away because of the paint by numbers gameplay. What is the point of forcing players to use the red gun for red enemies and the blue gun for blue enemeis when gunplay inherently forces you to switch between guns based on situation and distance?

Went with a bad name that speaks to no one.

GAMER: We want new IP's and fresh ideas

Publisher: Here ya go, Immortals of Averum, or Ghost Wire: Tokyo
or Forspoken, or Atlas Fallen.

Gamers: No Not those, we want games that look like our old IPs but new

@UltimateOtaku91 Yeah, Asda have this for £5 on PS5 and SX. They also have The last NFS and EA PGA games for SX for the same price. PS5 versions are dearer though.

@MikeOrator to be fair though those games you mention were barely average at best, one of them is already on ps plus,

Going through the boring prologue with unskippable cutscenes was a torture when I tried a demo or something. Then it appeared I have to aim to shoot with Gamepad. And the graphics looked washed out…I’m not surprised it ended up as a disaster.

1.There are too many games out there. 2. They have too much content. 3. The games as a service is addictive repetition fueled by rewards and/or the desire to beat other gamers. 4. Game subscription-services offer a wealth of games and gamers who have them feel obligated to try them out. 5. Games have become expensive recently in an economy (world-wide inflation) where many struggle. 6. Games are published and then cared for which makes many consumers wait for patches and/or discounts.

If you don't plan your budget according to these factors, you have hope your game (over)performs to the levels projected.

Now, the management measures the games' succes by its immediate sales numbers, and they are proactively laying people off, so they can profit on the fruit of their labor and then they pivot to the next project.

The trailers looked pretty cool but it just didnt do much to stand out. It felt like a dlc add on for call of duty. Doom, shadow warrior 3, ghostwire, etc those kinds of games have something that stands out

I actually quite liked the game. Terrible name though.

@Uromastryx

I feel that they were perceived as average. I have only played 2 of them (Ghostwire: Tokyo and Forspoken) both were really fun games held back, in the public eye, by things that normally would be forgiven in an established IP.

I knew someone would blame it being SP. It just looked corney, dated, and unimaginative.

They charged $70 for a game worth maybe $40.

I'm a fairly avid gamer, I like the fantasy genre and I like single player games. Yet, I still have no real idea what this game even is

I don't know if it is story based, action based, a good mix of the two, but I think the general feel was it looked like an online game and I just didn't care enough to look into it.

Marketing definitely failed it. As for the game and developer itself, who knows? I can't say they bit off more than they could chew as I've never seen enough of it in action to have any opinion on it 🤷‍♂️

First time I appreciated reading IGN in I don't remember how long

@MikeOrator Funny because none of those titles bring in any fresh ideas, especially Forspoken for that matter lol. A game that certainly does bring in fresh ideas is Death Stranding and that was a success.

The attached article is a pretty good read. More than anything, it confirms yet again that there’s no easy fix for the issues in the industry and no one thing to point to. As usual, reality is complicated.

I remember thinking it sounded like it could be a cool idea, but the reviews upon release were in the 6-7 range (the ones I read anyway) and it was just too much of a gamble to buy at full price, and sadly I've never gotten around to trying it. I know they included a free trial at some point, but by then BG3 had me and I didn't really care anymore.

I dunno, I enjoyed it for what it was. This first person magic shooter rpg genre could grow into something nice. Side note, Ghostwire Tokyo felt similar but more refined altogether. And Avowed looks cool enough to grab my attention

Still waiting for the sub 30€ price drops so I can buy myself a physical copy.

subscription services are killing this industry.

It was an underrated game in my opinion

I quite enjoyed it!

I bought it cheap and I quite like it. I think it plays a bit like doom eternal with a bit of a rpg element. I can't understand why it's getting the hate as it's a pretty decent game.

I admire what they tried to do but the game looked super generic and I think the first-person magic casting game is a hard sell, at least for a straight action game.

I agree with the person though, launching a huge budget FPS as a debut game seemed a bit insane.

First person shooter with magic you say?

Hexxen did it decades ago

I mean veterans need to realise that 'oh were used to big budgets'. Yeah and start smaller? EA may have the money but think about it, if your return as a studio and staff even if under a big publisher and your games flops your stuffed.

Then again I blame customers. I'm buying up singleplayer 5th/6th/7th gen shooters. Because the AAA or Indies are making immersive military games, whatever characters traits people laugh at. I feel for the devs. I wanted Immortals of Aveum, Forspoken to do well.

I seek gameplay, most people don't care. It's characters/themes.

They wanted to try something new-ish at least but gameplay doesn't save it I know I seek gameplay not the rest I've seen the flops I still buy.

I mean sure BF Hardline or others exist theme wise and yeah a fantasy shooter has been done with Hexen or Legendary (mythology with modern day) but I mean that, the 720p is fine, not great but it didn't bother me. That and the magic as weapons was a fine idea but limited.

Themes and basic gameplay trends with a slight spin only go so far.

There is a reason I went oh Bright Memory Infinite is different. It combines hack n slash with shooters. Devil's Third/Wanted Dead and others do that but as fast paced as it does nope BMI is very good at what it does. If Platinum made it and expanded on Vanquish I'd say yes please.

It took Insomniac years to go from Ratchet to Sunset Overdrive with above and below rail grinding and better speed. Scaler did that (and had leaf obstacles and fast paced rail grinding in 2004, a B grade platformer one off by Behaviour (aka Dead by Daylight studio as they are known as nowadays besides Jersey Devil their older original game) under their A2M name (Scaler, Wet and licensed games).

Some devs just don't think about game design or appeal to audiences in the right way. Sure I'm using older games but it makes a point and surprises me at least.

I cared for BMI more than COD/BF/Halo in 2021. An Indie.

Also a looter shooter because trends. Like when do I go yep need that. Like Inflection Games are making a survival game which is cool from ex-Bioware devs or others, that's like Mystcraft from Minecraft, a mod about pages and books to create worlds only it's about cards doing that with assets in Nightingale. It could bomb but I hope not because it's awesome. But gameplay doesn't matter to people at all.

Everything else does to most if not all customers besides the few of us into gameplay first design or enough of a theme/setting to make the gameplay/level design shine.

So could No Man's Sky and they dropped support but they didn't. We had Star Wars Battlefront 3/Elite Squadron to go for seamless planet/space among (no load screen which Elite Squardon has one) other things and it's been done. Starfield has weak space travel.

Other space games exist.

Judas I wonder about like with Callisto Protocol in terms of veterans making an IP to compete with the other ones.

I mean Yooka Laylee is great but I mean. Veterans and trends or veterans and Indies making fangames/heavily nostaglia inspired.

To me I'm sick of formulaic/nostalgia/inspired games and by Clive n Wrench (even if a fair and rough game in areas by that dev but for a 1 person team it's still a good title) I was just not having fun with it.

I am sick to death of Mario 64/Banjo/Spyro/Crash/Sonic clones at this point. Same with Outrun or Virtua Racing. Let alone eh realism in sims when 5th/6th GT was popular but so many clones/competitors had great ideas, left behind...... Great.

Milestone created the rewind system for racing games, they themselves years later still use the dumbed down one Grid 2008 and Forza Motorsport 3 popularised. Their old staff at the time of a one make racer in 2006 and their RPG elements to it or Evolution GT did it. Like come on trending game design gets too into devs heads.

Killswitch by Namco US, Gears/Uncharted popularised cover based shooters, other then key mechanics many 3rd person shooters are pretty bland. I am buying them up/researching them so it's pretty clear what levels the trend went for some games, others not in the Halo, COD, Crysis first person ones to TimeShift or other games.

Can we not get a better unique platformer? There is a reason I'm going back to 5th gen platformers no one talks about because they are way better in game design, characters and worlds, not repeating/refining a Mario 64 movesets, worlds with Banjo style tasks.

Characters/worlds may be loved but the game design is getting boring for how comfortable it is in the Indies space.

We can have tons of roguelikes/metroidvanias but eh, it's getting saturated and only so many refinements or world changes/characters can change that.

I'm sick of it, popular is one thing but devs actually 'tried' to stand out back in the day with platformers, racing (the two genres researched the most so far not as much others) and the genres have gotten more repetitive and bland/safe.

We get those and we don't have Chameleon Twist's tongue move that no grapple hook game replicates, we have Biomutant making the animal characters so boring of a moveset.

Gas immunity sure but Space Station Silicon Valley, has different goals and many animals with different movesets and their robot animals and a neutral/aggressive focus to them, not proper food chain system but you could make one.

Why no digging, swimming, flight, just animal traits for navigation of the world? How pathetic can Biomutant be in moveset. Sure the game itself is fine of what it offers but it's still just look at our apocalyptic world and animals being anthropomorphic.

Outposts. Sorry but Tower Defence in Sunset Overdrive was way more fun.

Games suck these days at what the past does better in originality.

Customers suck because they want comfort/games flop too much if it's not anything else appealing when I care about the gameplay only that's it they can make anything and I do not care and devs also do because their stuck new IP or continued ones because of their limits and if people are 'into it enough'.

The industry is stuck Indies or not in what 'people want' nostalgia or new ideas. Most so comfort of formulas and nostalgia. Or appealing worlds/characters.

It's disgusting.

The reviews did the game not much service too I heard a lot of people that didn't find the game that special either.

@Sil_Am Just bought myself a copy for 29 Euros.

Could someone put 140M on a new Starcraft please?

@Stragen8 Price and the fact that it has 'coming to PS+ in a year or two' written all over it didn't help.

Should have said "month or two," you'd have been closer.

EDIT: That was from Feb. "Month or two" would have nailed it, for April.

@Darylb88 couldn’t be that! It’s gotta be some complicated thing about how many people can play at once, what month it got released, and of course the state of the moon! They should have thrown some salt over their left shoulder before it launched and then I would buy it for sure