I have played Immortals of Aveum for over 100 hours, managed to get all the loot, and completed 41/47 achievements. My Steam profile says I have been playing for over 422 hours but that’s because I had the game running while working on my website.
EA and Ascendant Studios were kind enough to provide me with an early access code to Immortals of Aveum as they saw I was already making quality content about their game ahead of the game’s release.
Table of contents
Quick introduction
Immortals of Aveum describes itself as a Magic-Shooter and there is definitely magic happening as the game takes elements from Metroid Prime and places those in a rollercoaster shooter like Call of Duty. Immortals of Aveum has a big single-player campaign that lets you experience an epic story but on top of that, you get to explore the world beyond a linear path as you gain new abilities throughout your adventure and can reach new areas and loot.
In the Beginning
You play as Jak in Immortals of Aveum and initially, you don’t have any significant magical powers. The story picks up where you and your friends are basically living off scraps or stealing to keep your head above the water.
However, due to an impactful moment in Jak’s life that you get to play through, he gains the ability to use all 3 colors of magic. While his powers were untamed, it did feel empowering to me to unleash the destructive magic.
This introduction to Jak and his backstory is basically a beginner’s tutorial. You go through a more advanced training section as Jak gets recruited by General Kirkan. There the game will teach you the different types of magic and some additional abilities. This gauntlet tries to set you up for what’s to come in Immortals of Aveum.
Storytelling
I personally enjoyed the dialogue and the storytelling. The developers did follow the Marvel way of storytelling as they mix in some humor from time to time but the story isn’t a joke.
When EA was promoting Immortals of Aveum, I heard some snippets of dialogue throughout the trailers that I didn’t like, however, did wasn’t the case when I heard their voices in the full game. I know that they cherry-pick the voice lines for those trailers but they sometimes didn’t feel right to me, therefore, I thought that Devyn would be my least favorite character but he’s actually really enjoyable.
The game tells an epic story about the Everwar and the word choices do get real but they also sprinkle in some humor. I enjoyed most of those fun beats throughout the campaign.
Combat
There are 3 different colors of magic that each represent a weapon type.
- Red: Acts similar to a Shotgun
- Blue: Acts similar to your long-range Pistol/Sniper
- Green: Acts similar to a rapid-firing SMG with homing projectiles
These 3 different colors also kinda act as the different elemental types from Borderlands. Because enemies are weak against their own magic type. This means you will be using Red Magic against Red Magic-type enemies as that is the most effective.
The combat feels good but you can get overwhelmed from time to time because you have a wide range of abilities. I sometimes forget that I can use a shield because it isn’t part of my playstyle and then I get reminded the hard way when those floating Blue Battlemages fire javelins from a distance at you.
I was initially struggling with some Red Beasts that like to be in your face all the time, kinda like the Rabbit skag from Borderlands but as I progressed through the game I got better at dealing with them.
Immortals of Aveum has this Rock, Paper, Scissors thing going on with the 3 colors of magic. The smaller enemies can be defeated by any magic color but the game also throws these bigger enemies at you that you need to counter. Matching the magic color with your Sigil helps but you can also utilize fury or control spells to get quicker results.
Map Design
The areas I explored looked great. There is a main path that you can follow which will carry you through the story. However, you can also explore some side areas for loot.
There is some Metroidvania going on in Immortals of Aveum. When you obtain new abilities, you can go back to earlier maps and discover all new areas.
There is an obstacle course early on in the game which you can totally do by double jumping and using the blink ability to reach the next platform but you need some skill in order to do this. This feels rewarding if you are a more advanced player because you can get some cool loot early on. However, if you aren’t able to overcome that obstacle just yet, there is a hover ability that you unlock later in the game that makes those sections easier. I think that’s clever game design.
There are a lot of loot chests and other things hidden throughout the maps. They will commonly reward you with Gold and Magical Essense but discovering a golden chest with a new piece of loot is exciting.
Performance
Immortals of Avuem looks great, and plays smoothly, but has some high system requirements. My PC is meeting the low requirements but it still looks good. There was some small texture pop-up, probably that Nanite tech they are using where a lower rendered section gets replaced by a higher one if you get close enough. I wasn’t that bothered by it but I’m still playing an early build, there is going to be a Day-1 Patch that further optimizes the game.
I like the system resource budget tool they have in Immortals of Avuem as it calculates your system’s capabilities and tells you how much you are using and how many resources each quality setting uses. This lets you tweak the game to your liking, however, there wasn’t much tweaking to be done on my system.
Conclusion
I’m impressed by Immortals of Aveum! Here is this new studio dropping a good game into the world. It might not get all the things right like pacing, learning curve, and difficulty but it’s an enjoyable experience.
If you want a solid shooter that does something different go play Immortals of Aveum. You can even pick up a free demo and try it for yourself.
