Immortals Of Aveum has many things going for it, but most importantly it finds a way to breathe fresh air into the FPS genre.
Immortals of Aveum ticks many things off my list of things I enjoy seeing in a game. It’s a single-player only campaign, it finds a new way to approach FPS, and it looks great doing it all. Immortals is the first full game to be released that was 100% built on Unreal Engine 5 (not released by Epic) and it shows. While the game seems to have some upscaling issues here and there, it looks incredible overall.
Immortals Of Aveum
Developed by: Ascendant Studios
Platforms: Windows, Playstation 5 [Reviewed on], Xbox Series X/S
Release date: August 22, 2023
Even if it had nothing else going for it (it does), Immortals features giant set pieces with amazing worlds to traverse through. All the scenery is well crafted and the world feels massive with how everything is designed to be bigger than life. It’s pretty neat how the game never falls into being a ‘corridor shooter,’ and instead features wide open rooms with plenty of space to maneuver. It also tends to make exploring the world interesting as every step you take has massive statues that become part of puzzles; or vast open environments with beautifully crafted scenery in the distance as you progress to the objective.
Adding to the visuals is the fact Immortals takes out the guns from FPS and replaces them with magic powers. It’s a subtle twist that allows the game to have very cool mechanics that gradually get more fun as you progress. Each battle leads to enemies and powers exploding all over the place. This brings about some spectacular visuals, with light flares and other effects lighting up the screen. The best part, however, is this seamlessly allows you to use the whole controller and not simply rely on core trigger shooting.
Besides your core power of choice, you also get secondary powers that send bigger blasts, shield splattering perks, enemy disruptions, or even pulling mechanics. The fact your core weapon isn’t a gun means all these other perks are always readily available to use and it doesn’t feel awkward to not be “shooting” for a period of time while you utilize these other moves.
Which again leads to the big open areas where battles normally take place. All the battle situations have arena style approaches to them; with big circular areas that sometimes add minor platforming, allowing you to jump around enemies and figure out strategies on the fly. The combat is a well polished shooter that borders on being an arena shooter (e.g. Doom) with fast-paced combat that gets hectic real fast. The controls and swift abilities create interesting encounters with enemies on every mission.
Immortals looks incredible and the gameplay offers variety for players, but the game also showcases how poor writing can impact an otherwise great game. With cheesy dialogue that gets brutally annoying within an hour of playing the game, it’s easily the weakest part of the title. The game tries immensely to be “cool” where it attempts to hit certain tropes, but misses 9 times out of 10.
I giggled at times, but ultimately the “dudebro” dialogue feels like I’m suffering within Gears of War-style games from the early 2000’s all over again. It gets so bad that the main character says “sir” so many times even the game jokes it. It’s one of those jokes where the writers knew their writing was annoying, but instead of correcting it they thought “lets just make fun of it.” It’s so bad that some of the trophies for the game simply revolve around listening to all the dialogue in the game, and I simply won’t bother with it because it’s such a chore. It honestly got to the point where I was disappointed when my gameplay was disrupted by stretches of talking.
This is such a shame because Immortals offers great lore to follow. It’s a world where magic is basically common day, and with it comes spellcasters and unique characters I actually want to love. The story itself has trouble getting going though because of the poor writing. But there is so much there. They really thought about the whole world the game takes place in, and the story is easy to follow even though it felt like I was speeding to the end rather quickly.
Immortals does another thing I love which eases the pain: a slight open world approach to levels. It isn’t an open world game—and is mostly linear—but each area is rather large with several puzzles hidden within. I love this about games. I absolutely hate when games lengthen their playtime through boring open-world fetch missions. Instead, Immortals adds puzzles throughout each area you can figure out and unlock new gear.
The only minor complaint I have is these puzzles rarely tell you if you’re unable to actually complete them yet. For example, there is a light puzzle where I needed a specific spell to use, and I didn’t get this spell till midway through the campaign. So I kept coming across them and wondering “what the hell do I do!” A little more dialogue (believe it or not) where Jak (the main character) would more quickly state “hey bud, you can’t do this yet” would have been nice.
On the other hand, I should have caught on to these puzzles a little quicker because the game does an incredible job of naturally introducing new spells/abilities as you progress. This is great because you’ll be using the entire controller and casting all kinds of spells really quickly in battles. It could easily become overwhelming otherwise. But the nice thing about the game is you don’t feel like a weakling at the beginning of the game. Instead you’re actually a fairly decent spell caster who slowly gets new abilities that make you better.
The best thing about progression is you can very easily steer the game into your playstyle. If you prefer powerful bursts, longer distance battles, or the ability to basically be a tank you can choose skills, weapons, and adjust abilities to do just that. Multiple times I found myself somewhat stuck in certain areas, before going to my loadout and completely regearing my sigils to suit my style better. Then it became much easier.
Not only is Immortals a fresh take on the first person shooter genre, it’s a complete game. I rarely ran into any issues, and the issues I do have are very nitpicky things like not being able to jump on certain ledges or a dodge that is a bit iffy. Everything looks fantastic, it plays fantastic, and for the entry price you get a full game that doesn’t ask you to sign up for a season pass right when you open the game. While I wish it had a co-op (which I think could elevate the game greatly), I’m just happy to play a complete 15+ hour campaign where development resources weren’t sent to some unnecessary online component.
