Immortals Of Aveum: Detailed Review

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By Hypron || September 17, 2023

Baldur’s Gate III was released two weeks before Immortals of Aveum, EA’s new first-person spell-shooter action adventure. With its emotionally gratifying adventures, powerful gameplay systems, and evocative characters and narratives, Larian Studios’ Dungeons & Dragons-based RPG became a global success, raking up over 800,000 concurrent players on Steam. Baldur’s Gate III, a strong contender for Game of the Year, offers meaningful choices, compelling plots, and hundreds of hours of immersive immersion in the Forgotten Realms.

Starfield, Bethesda’s massive space RPG, arrived two weeks after Immortals, promising a thousand planets. Starfield, the studio’s first new IP in 25 years, lets you live out your space fantasies with boundless exploration, tight gunplay, and starship building. Fly anywhere, do anything; it’s essentially Skyrim in space, as studio director Todd Howard explained it. Starfield, maybe the biggest Xbox exclusive in a decade, requires hundreds of hours to taste all of its joys, similar to Baldur’s Gate. It offers an enthralling trip into the secrets of space and time, delving into topics of existence and being as well as the profundity of human striving—the need to know more.

The game Immortals of Aveum, which sits between these two massive, industry-defining titles, has modest ambitions. It allows you to shoot colored magic spells from your fingers in a pew-pew fashion. That’s all there is to it. Immortals aren’t interested in providing you with a captivating narrative, deep gameplay systems, or complete immersion in their world, which isn’t always a bad thing. This is because it provides a lot of what video games should provide: fun.

Immortals is nowhere near as grand in scope and ambition as the two games before it. It does not necessitate dozens of hours of your time; in fact, it does not necessitate any commitment at all. Unlike its two peers, it certainly won’t be contending for Game of the Year. However, Immortals’ straightforward storyline, an earnest and frankly goofy pastiche of modern superhero films, and its tight, 25-hour campaign deliver exactly what the game promises no more, no less.

Immortals of Aveum: New World

Immortals of Aveum, Ascendant Studios’ first game distributed by EA Originals, is a first-person shooter without guns. Shooting color-coded magic spells is like Dr. Strange crossed with Call of Duty. Visually, the action looks similar to Ghostwire Tokyo 2022, but it plays out differently. Magic has seen a resurgence (with varying degrees of success) this year thanks to Forspoken and Hogwarts Legacy, and Immortals is no exception. Its single-player campaign is mostly linear, with some branching paths for exploration thrown in for good measure.

Trailer

The spell-shooting action is broken up by a small but varied set of gaming features. Each level contains easy but fun platforming elements as well as puzzles that act as game speedbreakers. There is a decent story that unfolds like a second-tier DC movie. The highlight, of course, is its arena-style shooting sequences, in which you juggle your arsenal of magical spells while jumping and sprinting around like a caffeine-crazed rabbit, fighting off multiple opponents at once.

Jak, a common street thief in Seren’s slum city, is your tour guide through the Aveum region. He is unaware of a powerful and unique type of magic coursing through his veins. You follow Jak’s journey as he goes through a personal tragedy and enlists as a soldier in the Everwar, a millennia-long fight between Aveum’s five kingdoms. We follow him as he rises through the ranks of the army to become an Immortal, an order of elite mages who lead the war effort and serve as protectors of Lucium, one of Aveum’s five kingdoms. To be honest, it can be difficult to keep up with the information overload at first.

The game throws a basketful of half-cooked and familiar magical lore at you to establish the world of Aveum, the raging conflict, the parties involved, their motivations, and ancient artifacts and secrets that threaten to change the course of the Everwar, and consequently the fate of the lands.

I wouldn’t blame you if you were overwhelmed by language. It’s a lot to take in: the Shrouded Realm, the Wound, the Pentacade, Laylines, Fonts, Binding Stones, and Shrineforges. Fortunately, you can avoid the deep end and swim in the shallow waters of palatable information, which, mercifully, keeps things easy. You’re a battlemage in an endless war where the distinctions between good and evil are frequently blurred. It’s a conventional hero’s journey in the vein of most blockbuster superhero pictures, with humor interjecting action and drama at every turn. There’s nothing new about the story here, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hit home. There are some twists and turns along the way that do take you by surprise.

In the Everwar, Jak is accompanied by a colorful cast of companions – fellow Immortals. Kirkan, the Immortals’ leader, is Jak’s tutor, having taken him in when his life in Seren went apart. She’s unyielding and fierce, and she holds her cards close to her chest, frequently providing painfully ambiguous replies to Jak’s Everwar questions. Jak’s field commander, Zendara, is focused on the next task and has little time for small conversation or fellowship.

Devyn, on the other hand, is chatty and cheerful, functioning as a welcoming face in the frightening Immortals order. He also brings the jokes, dropping them with the confidence of a clown at any given moment, even if some of them don’t land.

The Immortals lead Lucium’s army against Sandrakk’s armies in the Everwar, a tyrant who desires to control the source of all magic in Aveum. The characters in the game are the usual suspects you’d expect to see in a phase five MCU film, but they have a natural chemistry here that works in their favor. This is due to sincere and devoted voice acting skills throughout, which shine even when the narrative is mediocre.

As I’ve already stated, Immortals frequently looks, sounds, and feels like a genre-fatigued superhero film, hitting typical narrative beats and action set pieces. The writing in the game, like the films it’s attempting to copy, frequently uses humor as a crutch, but it never descends into try-hard territory. The volume and abruptness of jokes frequently dilute the stakes involved and break narrative suspense, but they also represent the overall goofiness, never shying away from embracing the ridiculous stuff.

New people who you assume to be menacing and intimidating are presented over time. But when you meet them, they turn out to be Joss Whedon-esque, quippy idiots who make you laugh. In the second section of the game, for example, you infiltrate a terrible underground and then fight your way along a road burning with lava and ash, battling off swarms of adversaries to ultimately reach the volcanic lair of a guy you seek. When you meet him, he is moderately upset that you broke into his bachelor pad, corrects you when you call his parlor a porch, and then proceeds to give you coffee.

Immortals of Aveum: Spells and whistles

While Immortals of Aveum strives hard to be a film, its strength comes in the video-game elements. Ascendant Studios is led by industry veteran Bret Robbins, who oversaw the first Dead Space and multiple Call of Duty productions. His experience pervades Immortals, which, aside from the magic, is essentially a first-person shooter. The universe of Aveum is supported by blue, green, and red varieties of ancient magic. Magni can only use one type of magic, but Jak is a Triarch Magni who can use all three.

Each type of magic is accessed via Sigils, which serve as magical equivalents for weaponry in the game. Red magic is similar to shotguns in that it has a short range, heavy damage, and smaller magazines. Blue magic acts as a precise rifle and sometimes a sniper, making it ideal for long-range warfare. Green magic depicts fully automatic rifles or submachine guns with large clip sizes, ideal for dealing with medium-range opponents. The rapid-firing green Sigils, on the other hand, have more recoil and spray, lowering your accuracy. When you munch through the clip, each Sigil has a set reload time that can be shortened later with skill enhancements.

Most foes in Aveum are also color-coded, needing the associated magic kind to damage them. Juggling the various types of Sigils and switching between your magic colors (with a quick press of the triangle button on PlayStation’s Dualsense controller) becomes vital and, thankfully, amusing as each battle throws a motley gang of adversaries at you.

Aside from the attack-focused strike spells connected to your Sigils, each magic color is accompanied by a Totem that casts a control spell that aids you in traversing the environment, manipulating adversaries during combat, and solving puzzles. Totems are tied to your left hand while your Sigils are equipped on your right. Blue Totems, also known as Chains, channel the Lash spell, which is essentially a magical whip that draws remote adversaries closer to you in combat and allows you to grip onto anchor points in the environment during exploration.

Green Totems, also known as Vials, contain Limpets, which are fluid blobs that slow down moving targets, whether they are enemies or objects. Red Totems, or Lenses, shoot out blazing scarlet beams of disrupt spell that, well, disrupt enemy magic attacks and stun them.

Your spellbook also includes augments, such as a shield to defend you from incoming fire and blink and hover powers for escaping opponent strikes and platforming. What Immortals gets right is the mix of attack, control, and augment spells, which all operate in unison, never overwhelming the player or becoming unwieldy. When you fill up your Dominion meter, you can fire a strong beam that combines all three colors of magic and causes severe damage.

Immortals’ combat is limited to arena-style conflicts mixed with serpentine passageways of exploration. There’s a good diversity of adversaries here at first, but after a while, you’re just shooting at old creatures. Each chapter also includes new boss bouts to mix things up, which, while mainly easy, are a nice change of pace from regular combat. And, while spell firing functions similarly to guns in every other shooter, it doesn’t have the same sensation. It lacks the power and responsiveness of firearms and does not feel as tight and refined as Call of Duty’s gunplay.

The combat also never rises to become challenging and each encounter area includes a generous spread of health and mana crystals that replenish your HP and magic bars. Immortal is a breeze on Normal, and I’d recommend the Hard difficulty if you’re looking to sweat for your rewards.

Immortals of Aveum, thankfully, adds a good dose of exploration to the table, rewarding adventurous players with gear and gold. It functions similarly to side quests in God of War or Jedi: Fallen Order, where essentially linear hub worlds feature branching side pathways that are frequently locked. Paths open up as you gain new powers and spells, allowing you to explore new locations, collect new items, and fight new opponents.

The core worlds in this game are nowhere like as large as those in God of War, but you can always return to a previously explored location and discover something new. Each level also offers Shroudfanes extra challenges, which include dedicated platforming parts and boss battles, both of which can be difficult but provide high-value rewards. There’s a customary gear and upgrades system and a skill tree for the three branches of magic. These don’t dive deep like in an RPG and remain simple and serviceable, which works in Immortals’ favor.

Immortals of Aveum: Visuals and Scenes

Immortals of Aveum is a game built on Unreal Engine 5, with stunning visuals created by Nanite geometry and ray-traced Lumen lighting. The game features beautiful outdoor environments such as open plains, snowy cliffs, dense vegetation, and arid lands, all of which are enhanced by the game’s golden lighting. The character faces are also impressive, capturing subtle expressions and emotional changes. The game’s art style, on the other hand, feels derivative and lacks its own distinct identity.

On the PS5, the game aims for 60 frames per second in upscaled 4K resolution, but this comes at a cost in terms of performance. There are no options for switching between performance and quality modes, and frame drops occur during intense combat and busy areas. Image quality is also inconsistent, with texture quality and image resolution sacrificed to maintain a high framerate. Some of these issues may be addressed in future patches, and a recent update claims to improve upscaling for better image fidelity on consoles.

Conclusion

In today’s gaming landscape, it is difficult to find a good single-player shooter campaign that is not overshadowed by popular multiplayer modes or bogged down by microtransactions and lootboxes. Immortals of Aveum deviates from the norm by providing a short and sweet single-player campaign that is complete and in good shape from the start. While it has its flaws, the game’s spell-shooting combat and level design is fun and well-executed, and its summer blockbuster-style story is charming and endearing.

Immortals of Aveum is a refreshing change of pace from the demanding and time-consuming games that dominate the market, offering a snack-sized experience that is enjoyable in its simplicity. In an era where games strive for incredible depth, Immortals of Aveum reminds us of the importance of shallow and straightforward games that are just as satisfying to play.

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