Immortals of Aveum Review

Sometimes, the mood comes for a 7/10 game, one that reaches for AAA status but fades into half-price territory a few months after release. Such is the case with Immortals of Aveum, a game I whacked onto my PS5 wish list on release and snapped up when it fell to $54 in the recent Black Friday sale. I probably could have waited for an inevitable Game Pass appearance, but I’m glad to have given the studio a little something.

Aveum mixes a bit of God of War, a fair whack of Call of Duty and more high fantasy nouns than an enthusiastic novelist with something to prove. It provides a comfortable rollercoaster ride through some impressive Unreal Engine 5 environments (the lava area halfway through is just sublime) and is well-put-together enough to justify twenty hours of your time. The game is presented in a semi-open world manner, with long, meandering levels full of secrets that you can’t interact with until later in the game when you’ve unlocked the required skills or spells (and thus can spend another couple of hours backtracking to get everything if you so desire). The world of Aveum is somewhat lifeless, feeling a bit like everyone dropped what they were doing upon hearing about a Kmart LEGO clearance, but in a beautiful way. Overhead, coloured threads of pure magic meander, like energy snakes that give you a sense of scale. Later, the opportunity arises to ride them like rails.

Structurally, you spend some time talking to characters in highly reflective armour for a while, moving through levels rife with green, red, and blue magic collectibles, and encountering predictably paced enemy spawn points. Over the course of the adventure, some tougher enemies show up, to the point where you’ll be glad that they are colour coded so that you can shoot appropriate magic at them to wear down their shields. Blue magic is your reliable companion, or your main rifle if this was a shooter proper, while green magic homes in on enemies, and red magic is explosive. You can customise the type of firepower for each gauntlet. For example, you might prefer a green homing missile that’s a bit more powerful, but which causes your movement to be slower, over one that shoots heaps of low-damage orbs. As you kill enemies and come across chests in the world, you can upgrade these gauntlets as well as spend points earned on a skill tree that gives you bonuses aligned to each magic colour.

While Aveum can err on taking itself a bit too seriously, there’s obvious comic relief in the cast of generally sardonic characters. Everyone speaks in modern vernacular, to the point that the actual tone of the whole thing can feel a bit confused. One moment, you’ll be told that the path forward is certain death, that you’ll get eaten by demons, only for the main character to say something like, ‘Right on, I’ll go ahead then and catch up with you later.”

Combat may be the focus, but I more enjoyed the moments of environmental exploration, utilising platforms to search for secrets, opening chests found in obscure corners for rare loot, and manipulating large statues or plant roots with magic to bend them closer to an objective so I could jump and float across (yes, this has double jump and magical floating). When the action ramps up, there’s no denying that it is kinetic. However, I soon found myself changing the difficulty down as enemies become damage sponges. If you want to stick with higher difficulties, then min/maxing gear combos, skill unlocks and upgraded gauntlets is a legitimate exercise if it’s something you are into. If not, do what I did and aim for highest shields and damage at each opportunity. Things can get hectic later in the game, with arenas full of nasty monsters across each magic affinity, so keeping abreast of triplicate upgrades is a must. Thankfully, this is easy to do during a pedestrian play through if you shoot each obvious loot barrel and do a little bit of side exploration to uncover funds from more lucrative golden chests.

The feeling I got playing Aveum is that it is a decent first stab from Ascendant Studios, one that would likely bloom into a pretty decent sequel. This probably won’t happen, seeing as in September of 2023, due to low sales and mixed/average review scores, 45% of the development team lost their jobs. You can probably expect to see it move to EA Play/Microsoft Game Pass soon, which may breathe some life into the player base. An uptake from year-end sales might also help.

The most disappointing aspect of this is that Aveum is a focused single-player experience without (as far as I’ve seen) any sign of microtransactions or avenues to take more money from players. It’s a throwback to an ideal state of gaming, in my view, and for that it should be appreciated, even if I agree with the consensus that it doesn’t stand out in any area. Immortals of Aveum displays the future potential of this team, so I hope that they get the opportunity to work on something similar moving forward, even if the possibility of a sequel looks quite slim.