“I just remember stopping and thinking, instead of a helicopter, well, what if that was a dragon? And instead of RPG shells hitting a wall what if those were fireballs cast from like a battle mage?”
That was what Bret Robins, CEO of Ascendant Studios and the game director behind the upcoming “magic shooter” Immortals Of Aveum, said to the media in a preview event we recently attended virtually.
That line of thought was in the context of Robins’ past experience at Sledgehammer Games, making Call Of Duty games. Sure, the popular FPS has gone to near-future sci-fi alongside its more grounded boots-on-the-ground take on warfare. But they never went magical. With battle mages.
“Where’s that game? I wanna play that game!” he added.
When Immortals Of Aveum was first revealed, we only saw vague hints of a fantasy world where some sparkling magic is involved, people are at war, and you see it through a first-person lens.
But now we know more. And you know what, this looks like a promising, refreshing change of pace as far as blockbuster AAA single-player games go.
Immortals Of Aveum is set in the namesake lands of Aveum where the magic comes in red, green, and blue light rays that flow around the world (the “leylines”). Factions are fighting what’s called an Everwar. And yes, the gunplay replaces guns with magical RGB you can spout out of your gauntlet because you’re a battlemage.
Immortals Of Aveum seems to have invested in worldbuilding with how there are so many little details about the game will let you in- expect cutscenes to linger about and do a little bit of a lore explainer.
There are bits and pieces of Call Of Duty that can still be seen in Immortals Of Aveum’s DNA. The protagonist, Jak, is essentially a trooper, a soldier. And characters speak like they are in the military with the usual “sir yes sir” manner of speech. But it’s all being wrapped in this magical fantasy coating. Characters can speak on you via radio, but in this world, it’s a magical crystal that acts as your walkie-talkie of sorts.
Gameplay-wise, this looks like a blockbuster single-player campaign with set-piece moments and paced-out combat sequences. It’s expected to be around 20-25 hours to beat.
Combat looks frenetic. You can swap between the three elements (only referred to as red, green and blue magic) and the way they cast out the spells does give them each a distinct flavour. One magic spell hits hard but only at close-range like a shotgun and another features homing projectiles. You also have a shield that can be cast to deflect attacks- but can shoot through the shield.
There are support magics as well, Control magic as they were referred to us. One of them is a leash that can grab and bring enemies close. There are also stronger spells called Fury spells which require a resource, in this case, mana.
Enemies have specific weaknesses that you need to pick up on to gain an advantage. Matching magic colours (shooting blue magic on an enemy with a blue shield up, for instance) will be what you are expected to do.
As a point of reference, let’s use two other recent games with magic powers. In Immortals Of Aveum, you don’t have a lot of wild traversal moves (you do have a short teleport spell, Blink) – so less Forspoken, more Ghostwire Tokyo as you are boots-on-the-ground. But the way you unleash spells is more Forspoken than Ghostwire Tokyo, as there are a ton of magic particles being blasted on the screen in hectic battles.
Yet, somehow the game will have a gear system, side content and even puzzle-solving to break up the pacing. So it’s not just all magic-shooty-shooty-bang-bang. Hopefully, the gear system is the God Of War brand of changing distinct properties or stats rather than a loot game’s style of getting incremental stat numbers going up.
While we started off with the frame of reference of how Immortals Of Aveum started out as Call Of Duty but with magic, it does feel like its own beast, doing its own thing with its unique brand of magic shooter.
It’s been a long while since we see a major game title doing a magic shooter- most of the new indie titles are riffing on Heretic, the still-loved magic shooter by Raven Software (which is still around, but they’re now, coincidentally, busy being a Call Of Duty support studio). So hopefully this relatively bold direction Immortals Of Aveum is going for will actually pay off. So far, it looks promising. How it plays in the hands is a story for another day.
Immortals Of Aveum will be out on July 20 for the PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, EA App) and Xbox Series X|S.