EA’s ‘Immortals of Aveum’ cost roughly $125M to make and market, IGN reports

A former employee at video game developer Ascendant Studios, which developed 2023 release “Immortals of Aveum” with Electronic Arts as publisher, said that the game failed to gain any sales traction even though internal indications suggested it would be a success, IGN’s Rebekah Valentine reports. “At a high level, Immortals was massively overscoped for a studio’s debut project,” one former employee said. “The development cost was around $85 million, and I think EA kicked in $40 million for marketing and distribution. Sure, there was some serious talent on the development team, but trying to make a AAA single-player shooter in today’s market was a truly awful idea, especially since it was a new IP that was also trying to leverage Unreal Engine 5. What ended up launching was a bloated, repetitive campaign that was far too long.” “It’s not a sequel or a remake, it doesn’t take 400 hours to beat, has zero microtransactions, no pointless open world grinding,” another Ascendant employee told IGN. “Although not everyone loved it, it reviewed pretty well, currently sitting at a 74 on Open Critic and a Mostly Positive on Steam. No one bought it.”