Following the rather impressive Immortals of Aveum presentation detailed here, I had the chance to speak with Ascendant Studios Executive Producer Kevin Boyle to discuss the finer details of the first-person single player magic shooter game due to launch on July 20th for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X (pre-orders are live now, pricing is $59.99 on PC and $69.99 on consoles, with a $10 more expensive deluxe edition that comes with the Ancient Relics of Aveum Pack).
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I just watched the presentation and it was very intriguing.
Thank you. We’re excited to finally talk about it, so I’m glad to get your eyes on it and have this conversation.
Just a curiosity to begin with. With the release date of Immortals of Aveum so close, this makes for an unusually late reveal compared to most games. Was that the plan all along?
Yeah. We’ve been holding our cards pretty close and taking the approach of making a loud noise closer to the launch date as opposed to a trickle of information for a longer amount of time. The details for that are more on the marketing side than my area of expertise. But I think, anecdotally and personally, in terms of my attention span for things that are coming up that I’m interested in.
I think it’s an interesting approach to grab people’s attention close to the time that it’s something they can actually get their hands on.
And also, I think it’s a potentially interesting release window for you because it’s rather void of big games, being Summer time.
It’s interesting because I think the times that are typically crowded are crowded for a reason. It’s a matter of picking what’s going to work best.
When you unveiled the studio at last year’s The Game Awards, Ascendant Studios was labeled a triple-A team. Do you also consider Immortals of Aveum a triple-A game?
Yes, I would say so. That’s certainly been part of the discussion all along, I think, in terms of the scope of what we’re building here and the quality bar we’re holding to.
I don’t know that AAA has a clear and definitive definition that everyone could point to and agree on, but certainly that’s what we’re building.
You’ve talked about the inspiration from previous work some members of the team made on Call of Duty campaigns. After the presentation, though, this looks like way more than that, as Call of Duty campaigns are very linear whereas there seems to be exploration here, correct?
There’s certainly exploration on offer to the player. The events of the game are very much narrative driven. We’ve never set out to build, like, sandbox levels of non-linearity. But, in addition to being a campaign based single player magic shooter, narrative and storytelling has always been a major point of focus for the team.
It was also mentioned that there is quite a bit of side content. Can you talk about that a bit?
I guess the way I can speak to that is to say that we put the game together with players who want to take a straight shot through the story in mind and then there are some things to discover for players who are interested in turning over every stone and finding every secret and taking some cues from Metroidvania style gameplay where the first time you’re moving through a space, you may not have all the abilities you would need to explore every area and find every secret. Hopefully, that motivates players to come back when they’ve developed more abilities, more powers to access that thing they saw that they were unable to get across that gap or to get through that ward or whatever the obstacle may have been.
But then, for players who are just more interested in pressing forward in the story, that’s not something that is necessarily a requirement.
Can you disclose whether the side content in Immortals of Aveum is going to be mostly puzzles, or are there maybe optional boss fights and stuff like that, too?
I wouldn’t go into expressing a full list, but I think you’ll find that it’s a pretty deep offering in terms of variety. There are certainly puzzles. Some things are relatively straightforward and then some content in the later game is fairly elaborate and challenging.
Usually, games set in fantasy settings tend to have more or less deep RPG systems. Where does Immortals of Aveum stand in this regard? Is there a lot of RPG-like progression?
We obviously set out to make a first-person shooter, but we definitely wanted the player to be able to express their preferred play style. There’s a lot of variation in gear that can modify and change the way your abilities work, plus a pretty significant skill tree that lets players focus on different paths of magic and unlock different abilities that affect their play style.
We certainly want to lean into giving players the ability to steer how their build plays versus other options and try different things on for size in a way that certainly relates to RPG customization but feels like a natural fit for a first-person shooter.
Do you have character levels in the game, or is that not a thing in Immortals of Aveum?
Not in a traditional sense. Certainly, there’s a matter of how far into the talent tree you’ve gotten, and we do measure the relative effectiveness of gear using numbers. So in some sense there is, but it’s not like in a tabletop RPG 5th-level character type of way. It’s more a matter of the gear you have equipped plus the abilities you unlocked leading to changes in your stats that affect your power level.
You’ve mentioned the talent system. Are players able to respec? If so, is it free or not?
I can’t get into the specific gating mechanism in terms of cost; I’m not the right person to speak to that. We’re still under development there, but it is absolutely the case that players are able to respec what they’ve spent in the talent tree. We don’t want someone having to live with a decision that lasts the length of the campaign that they’re not happy with. Also, as new gear becomes available that leans in a different direction than you’ve previously chosen, we want you to be able to steer toward that if that’s what you’re interested in. So respeccing is definitely on the table, but I can’t speak specifically to the cost.
Going back to combat, I think you’ve said it’s mostly based on the three colors of magic, red, green, and blue. As I understand it, each color has its own weapon-like feel, right?
Yes, the three colors of magic that are expressed through your Sigils each have a distinct use and feel. But then, in addition to that, you’ve got control spells that are cast through totems and out of Jack’s left hand. There are abilities like his shield and blinking and other movement abilities that unlock later in the game. Plus, the Furies, which are more powerful spells that are cast using a pool of mana. The three colors of magic are your baseline weapons, but there’s certainly more. I think it was more than 25 spells all told. So it’s certainly not just the three Sigils.
Can you charge your spell for a heavier attack? Is there any concept of distinct heavy and light attacks?
Depending on the Sigil, there are definitely Sigils that lean in that direction. Some are meant for spraying wildly, others are more precise. Some, if you take the time to build them up, are more powerful. That’s not the case across all magics, but that’s definitely included in the game.
During the presentation, we were told that some enemies have built-in resistance to a color of magic. Correct?
Yes. Those are defenses that your best way to overcome is to use specific Sigils and Furies that are going to be more effective.
Just to clarify, though, this isn’t a classic color-coded system where you literally cannot defeat an enemy unless you use that precise type of magic, right?
Sure. In some cases, particularly with enemies who bring magic defenses to the table, there’s a more effective path and a less effective path. But you don’t have to use a certain skill to kill them, I would say in general, but I would stop short of saying that is never the case.
As far as encounter design goes, Immortals of Aveum is a shooter, but with all this magic flying around, it seems like a good opportunity for epic boss fights. Is there anything you can say about that?
We definitely want the difficulty and the experience to have these points of escalation. So that’s part of what’s there. And obviously, the way you would engage these bosses, these more difficult encounters, is different than the rank-and-file swordsman that you may have been dealing with on the way toward them. It’s an interesting tool in our toolbox, certainly.
A shield spell was mentioned in the Immortals of Aveum presentation. Is there also some way to counterattack if you parry at the right time?
Without getting into the specifics, I think what you’re describing is some of the types of things that players can access through how they choose to acquire talents in the talent tree. What your shield is capable of at a baseline is different than what’s on offer to someone who wants to invest in the blue talent tree, for example,
Okay, great. The game is launching only on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X. It’s also, I believe, likely to be the first third-party game made with Unreal Engine 5 to make it to the market.
I think that might be the case. We’ve been holding our cards pretty close and like you said, we’re pretty close to our launch date and I don’t know of another title that will beat us to the punch there.
Yeah. So, can you speak to how the latest and greatest hardware and software at your disposal enabled you to make a better game than would have otherwise been possible?
I’d say in terms of visual fidelity some of the new tools that are available in Unreal Engine 5, like Lumen for real time lighting or Nanite for rendering incredibly complex geometry in ways that would have been previously inaccessible, it’s really opened things up for us to take a bit of a different approach in the way that we think players are going to be able to see and feel the difference.
Like I don’t know that on previous versions, like Unreal Engine 4, we certainly didn’t have the full suite of tools we’re using now to make the game look as good as possible, so that’s been exciting for us.
After watching the presentation, your setting seems to be more in the science fantasy camp rather than pure fantasy. Would you agree?
Yeah, I think, aesthetically, I would definitely agree. It’s visually interesting to take an approach to fantasy that’s very specific and maybe not the usual path, but it’s a world that is filled with magic and even the things that feel like technology, at their core, magic is at the root of their power.
I feel like the worldbuilding for this game has been remarkable, the way in which it expresses old dead cultures versus where we are today with the things we have access to and the tools used by different groups. It’s a part of the game and the worldbuilding that I really enjoy.
I think that both Brett and our Lead Writer Michael Kirk are really strong in this area, in crafting this world that has a feeling to it that’s not a straight shot on fantasy, but all still feels grounded and interconnected.
Will the narrative in Immortals of Aveum be linear, or are players able to make choices at key points?
We want the player to be able to make choices and express themselves. But there’s a narrative here that you are taking part in, this story that progresses in a way that’s pretty specific. It’s certainly not a fully sandbox narrative, but there’s a conflict that builds that you’re a part of.
I guess it is kind of a nonspecific answer there, but hopefully, that gives you a sense.
Thank you for your time.
