Seeing new IPs in a world full of sequels and remasters is always a breath of fresh air. Ascendant Studios is the team behind Immortals of Aveum, a fast-paced magic shooter with RPG elements that innovates beyond the genre’s typical landscape. Nevertheless, it has a story we couldn’t get behind due to its characters. Despite the cringy dialogue, the lack of character development, and a narrative held back by its cast, our time with Immortals of Aveum was enjoyable due to the fantastic combat, beautiful art style, and smooth performance, all of which will surely hook many players for hours.
Immortals of Aveum Review: An Almost Complete Package
Before starting our Immortals of Aveum review, we knew this game was a small team effort that later got the backing of major publisher EA. Yet, the game has the sheen of a AAA title because of Immortals of Aveum‘s stellar gameplay, animation, and visuals, even though the story and characters fall flat. While the game shines in many ways, it needed one small extra push, narrative-wise, to knock it out of the park and allow it to compete with other giant games of this year. Nevertheless, Immortals of Aveum is an enjoyable game thanks to fun and innovative gameplay mechanics that break the mold of the genre.
Story: Go, Go, Battlemages!
The story of Immortals of Aveum kicks off with the protagonist, Jak, a cocky yet friendly denizen of the slums of Seren, a city built under a bridge where the unfortunate reside. Here, you learn about the Lights Army of Lucium, your typical group of rebels fighting for the good of the continent, facing the army of Rasharn, the tyrannical empire-esque group looking to subdue the weak. As the only ones left in Aveum, these two armies fight in the Everwar, a conflict over the control of magic in Aveum.Â
Jak gets dragged into this clash when he discovers he’s a Triarch, a wielder of the three types of magic: red, blue, and green. With the objective of mastering his abilities and fulfilling a promise made to a long-lost friend, we accompany Jak on a journey of epic proportions in Immortals of Aveum as this slum dweller develops from a neophyte Magni battlemage to the only one capable of putting an end to the Everwar.
This epic story has some of the best visually cinematic moments we’ve seen. These moments become better thanks to how well-made the facial animations are. For a small studio, the team went all in to show off highly detailed and well-directed cutscenes. Sadly, the one thing that holds the story back and prevents it from being great is its characters.
Jak and the gang have some cringy moments that undercut the more dramatic tone of the plot, causing the narrative to become less enjoyable. For instance, when a critical moment in the story took place, Jak would come in with a wince-worthy remark and unnecessary humor that didn’t hit the mark. The side characters aren’t much better. Most of them are forgettable, and the few that stand out don’t seem like they will return in later entries. As a result of Jak’s cringeworthiness and uninteresting characters, many scenes became unbearable. Thankfully, we could jump back into the action once things were over, as combat is the main redeeming quality of Immortals of Aveum.
One unnecessary thing in the game concerning its narrative and dialogue is the addition of a timer. In games like The Wolf Among Us, the use of this mechanic is understandable. You need to pay attention to make a decision or perform an action that can affect the story, but this doesn’t apply here. For example, in the middle of the campaign, Jak must get a sigil to let him destroy or control something crucial for the war. Here, it was seemingly evident we’d be the ones making the critical choice; however, the game made that choice for us, as the outcome was predetermined. As a result, the timer system, and dialogue options in general, ended up feeling superfluous, with no stakes to consider.
Gameplay: Pick Your Color
Unlike the story, our review of Immortals of Aveum’s gameplay is simply terrific. It’s so good, in fact, that we consider the experience the best single-player first-person shooter of the year thus far. Even when the genre has been played out in many ways, the studio has created a game that stands out with its engaging combat. There are three styles of magic that Jak can use as a Triarch capable of wielding all three types. This opens up a world of customization regarding combat that’ll let you shoot spells as if you were shooting a gun. Since this is an FPS experience with magical spells, the gunplay, or “spellplay” in this case, has to be on point, and it is.
Every spell is relevant, and the sigils, or weapons you equip, are essential to tailor combat to your play style. At first, we thought our green magic strikes would be like an assault rifle, only to later discover a sigil that worked like a minigun. This was a welcome surprise, as every sigil choice felt meaningful and relevant throughout our playthrough. Singleplayer FPS titles are typically known for generic settings and gameplay, but Ascendant Studios broke the mold. They innovated a stale genre with something as simple as changing guns for magic and adding environments that don’t need to be war-torn places. Some of our favorite environments were the central hamlet-like area surrounded by glowing leylines in the sky that help you reach other places. Another highlight is the Light Army headquarters. It’s a location filled with epic stone structures that reminded us of Asgard in Marvel movies, with more magic, of course.Â
Besides the sigils, you’ll also get totems that unlock abilities that grant you new traversal options and tools to solve puzzles. These totems also provide certain bonuses that let you customize your gameplay experience. This goes hand-in-hand with the talent tree, which is fantastic. Unlike many RPGs, it isn’t bloated or irrelevant. We had to choose our talents correctly depending on the type of magic we wanted to focus on. If you make a mistake, know that you can respec right from the start, which encouraged experimentation.
Immortals of Aveum’s spellplay is addictive, and we couldn’t wait to face more enemies, which are generally challenging and satisfying to fight. In large numbers, the weakest opponents can still overwhelm you, and while you have the upper magic hand, you’ll need to strategize to take them down. After a while, new types of mobs will join, and you’ll have to think tactically about what tools to use and when. While some stats and itemization options seemed out of place here, every game nowadays includes crafting, upgrading, and dismantling mechanics because that’s the norm.
Conversely, the puzzles were anything but enjoyable. While the hardest ones are optional and lead to things that aren’t required for the main story, the ones you’ll encounter during the campaign leave much to be desired. Our biggest issue with them is how they affect the game’s pacing. During the game’s final chapters, you’re fighting inside a moving structure, making for quite the epic experience. When your adrenaline is at its highest, driving away hordes of enemies and shooting your way through narrow spaces, a bland puzzle is there to bring momentum to a halt. Sadly, this happens more than once. While the inclusion of puzzles isn’t wrong, they should never affect the game’s pacing, especially during high-octane and urgent situations.
Graphics and Audio: As Smooth as They Can Get
During our gameplay Immortals of Aveum review, we didn’t experience a single crash, glitch, or bug during the story. For a game made by a small team for next-gen consoles and PCs, Immortals of Aveum is a technical marvel. The facial animations are well-crafted, the textures are of the highest quality, and we only saw one instance of pop-in during our playthrough.Â
Playing on PS5, we only experience one instance of frame drops in a populated area, and that’s it; everything ran at 60fps, which is essential in an FPS title such as this. Plus, the art style is excellent. The team did a tremendous job with the lore, and that translated to the world, too. Every location, every area, and even Jak’s quarters are visually fantastic, and nothing feels out of place.
Regarding audio, we experienced some static in certain parts of the game, mostly in dialogue. This wasn’t a continuous issue, as it went away after a while. The music was superb and transitioned perfectly between combat and exploration. While it isn’t something we’ll have playing in our heads for weeks, it was good enough to accompany the tense moments of the game in the right way.
Conclusion: A Fun Debut Game
My time during the Immortals of Aveum review period gave us hours of fun due to its core game gameplay but killed the hype with some predictable story moments and bad character development. Being Ascendant Studios’ first game, we believe the developers are on the right track. The studio has created a fantastic FPS that doesn’t rely on guns or another generic setting and instead transported us to a world we can’t wait to visit again. While there are many flaws in its narrative style, unnecessary humor, and character development, we can’t wait to play another game by the team behind Immortals of Aveum. Hopefully, we won’t wait long to see what they cook up next.
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Immortals of Aveum is available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
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