Dreaded Foes

Find Your Power to Rise Above

Dreaded Foes

Find Your Power to Rise Above

Hiya,

This is a big week for us at Ascendant, and it marks the beginning of an action-packed summer. We just dropped an EPIC newImmortals of Aveum trailer! We’ll be breaking down the vast array of enemies you’ll be facing in IoA, plus gain insights from an industry veteran on how to handle one of the most dreaded foes: the unyielding passage of time. There’s so much more to come, we’re just getting started!

Watch the Immortals of Aveum Official Gameplay Trailer 

In case you missed it during Sony’s PlayStation Showcase yesterday, Immortals of Aveum premiered a brand new trailer! We were thrilled to show off our game alongside so many other great titles. If you didn’t catch the live broadcast, you can watch the Immortals of Aveum Official Gameplay Trailer on YouTube.

Now there were A LOT of new faces in the trailer to say the least. We’re ready to help your brain digest all the helmed, glowing, and otherwordly awesomeness that assaulted your senses with a breakdown of all the new enemies you saw and who they are in the world of Aveum. Read on to prepare for battle in the Everwar!

  • The Hand - Master of force magic and the Order of Masks, the Hand of Sandrakk is Rasharn's champion. Her lightning raids across Lucium's borders have earned her the fear and enmity of the Immortals.

  • The Morbane - An Oathbroken of Kalthus inducted into Rasharn's Order of Mask and Sandrakk's Butcher. He oversaw the siege of Lavenry, the capital of Lucium, and brought it to heel with cruelty and fear.

  • Leylodons - When leylines grow weak, it attracts the corrupted, worm-like creatures from the Shrouded Realm to feast on the last of their magic.

  • Chroniclers - Magical constructs driven mad by the Gatterond that now stalk the sky-islands of Oremen, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.

Read more about enemies, magic abilities, and environments you’ll encounter as you venture through Aveum and put a stop to Sandrakk, that ruthless Tyrant of Rasharn in this PlayStation blog.

Time for Some Game Dev Wisdom

Imagine you have the opportunity to work on a beloved IP. You get off the call with the publisher and you feel excitement pulsing through your veins while design ideas buzz through your head. Then you get the news: the game needs to be done in a brutally short period of time.

In a sneak peek into the next episode of Rise Above, Free Range Games CEO, Christopher Scholz, shares what he learned from working on a massive IP with serious time limits:

“Probably one of my favorite games that we made [at Shaba Games] was Spider-man: Web of Shadows. And like most projects in the gaming world, there were things that were fucked about it, like not enough time in a shitty engine, but I was really proud with what we were able to do.”

Christopher Scholz, CEO of Free Range Games

Scholz’s’ team only had 17 months to turn a mess of code into an open world sandbox game that would stand up the incredible Spider-man IP. One thing Scholz learned was how to reframe deadlines so they look less like a grim reaper and more like a kind-but-firm ally. He dropped some serious wisdom during the interview:

“There is something [powerful] about how the best decision is the one you make and then you just go with it.

I’ve begun to wonder if there's ever too much time. The great thing about deadlines is that you're forced to make decisions, right? …Time pressure does provide that. But there is a sweet spot. I think it's becoming more common for games to take longer and give creators the time they need to really make something special. Back in the day, you had to ship every year. So there was no time off to really assess and refactor and try to figure out what was the best thing to do – it was just like, go, go, go, go, go. Here at Free Range, we're trying to be more thoughtful and take the time we need to really make something awesome.”

Christopher Scholz, CEO of Free Range Games

As a nearly 30 year veteran of the games industry, Scholz is bringing the lessons he’s learned from working on iconic IPs like Spiderman and Tony Hawk to his company Free Range Games. As they bring their upcoming title, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, to life, we can’t wait to see how impactful all of that experience is in a world of dwarven crafting and exploration. Check out the full interview by subscribing to our podcast and listening in next Monday, May 29!

In the meantime, catch up with our previous podcast guests on YouTube, Spotify, or your fave podcast platform.

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