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Immortals of Aveum is Coming 2023
All-new AAA magic shooter set in an original fantasy universe
Immortals of Aveum is Coming 2023
What a Night! What a Milestone for our Studio!
On Thursday, we officially announced our debut game at The Game Awards – Immortals of Aveum (pronounced ay-vee-um). It’s a groundbreaking new single-player, first-person magic shooter that delivers a visceral, cinematic campaign experience we hope players will never forget! It’s built on Unreal Engine 5 and will release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC in 2023. The game is set in an original fantasy universe called Aveum, that is engulfed in magic, rife with conflict, and on the verge of oblivion.
“I was the creative director on four big games in a row, the original Dead Space and three Call of Duty titles, and I had an amazing opportunity to start my own studio and build an incredible team that I’m lucky to work with every day. I founded Ascendant Studios to make original and epic games, and here we are, four years later, about to finish our first one. What started as a crazy, exciting idea has grown into a crazy, exciting triple-A game.”
With Immortals of Aveum, our team feels like we’re boldly re-imagining the future of big budget, AAA video game development and defying what we’ve all come to expect from first-person shooters. We can’t wait to unleash all the information next year, but in the meantime, the official teaser trailer gives you a peek at our game’s unique weapon – sigils – as well as a glimpse of the world of Aveum.
Ascendant and EA Originals Join Forces
The Game Awards was also momentous for another reason, because we announced our partnership with EA Originals to help release Immortals of Aveum.
"Just when we were getting into full production on the game, we started to attract attention from publishers. It was a very validating moment, to see these big publishers get excited about what we were making.”
We chose to partner with EA because we know they’ll help us reach the biggest audience possible, while respecting our ownership and creative control of the IP. Their track record with It Takes Two is excellent and we’re thrilled to have their expertise and resources backing us.
“The roster of talent Bret and his team at Ascendant Studios have gathered under one roof is incredible; they are exactly the right team to bring an ambitious project like this to life. Every team member has a wealth of experience developing many of gaming’s biggest cinematic action and first-person shooter games over the past decade. Immortals of Aveum is the result of Ascendant’s vast collective experience and great ambition, fused with their bold and creative vision. EA Partners is proud and excited to collaborate with Ascendant in launching this epic, action packed brand new IP; a game players will never forget.”
Reflecting on Ascendant’s Origins
It’s that time of year when we all reflect on the past year, and look ahead to the New Year. This is especially so for us, as our studio just turned four years old! Between that milestone and our announcement of Immortals of Aveum, we thought what better way to honor these moments than by reflecting on our journey up to now and glimpsing into the future of what’s to come.
As the founder and CEO of Ascendant, naturally our studio’s story begins with Bret Robbins. His 26 years of experience working in the games industry means he’s seen a lot, and has a lot of stories to tell.
Like, what serving as creative director on the original Dead Space was like…
"Dead Space remains one of my best development experiences. We had an opportunity to make a brand new horror game and do something original and different. I'm a big horror and sci-fi fan, so it was a lot of fun to direct that game design and narrative."
Or, how the first sparks of the idea for Immortals of Aveum came to be…
"I remember working on Call of Duty, and reviewing one of the levels we were making. It was a typical battle scene, with helicopters flying overhead, RPG rounds exploding into the sides of buildings, and soldiers running down a street taking fire. I remember staring at the level and thinking, what if instead of a helicopter, that was a dragon. And instead of RPG explosions, those were fireballs cast by a battle mage. And instead of other soldiers around me, we were all battle mages, firing off spells and wrecking the place. And I stopped and thought ‘Where is that game? I want to play that game!’ Since then, the concept of the game has moved away from Call of Duty, but the spirit of making a ‘magic shooter’ has remained."
You can discover the full origin story of Ascendant Studios and our game Immortals of Aveum on our website. To our future players and community – whom we hope to build a wonderful two-way relationship with – this is just the beginning of our story at Ascendant. Let’s rise together.
We’ll have much more to share about Immortals of Aveum in the run-up to launch in 2023. In the meantime, we hope you’ll check out some of the other content our studio produces!