Whenever a new franchise hits the triple-A gaming calendar, I always have a chicken-or-the-egg question about its origins: Did this start off as a story, or did someone have a gameplay concept that they later story fit?
Despite the stylish action-heavy gameplay shown so far – and again in a new trailer on Thursday – Immortals of Aveum started out as a story, Ascendant Studios founder Bret Robbins told Polygon this week. Last year, Robbins traced the game’s origins to a stray thought he had while working on it Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare ten years ago: what if we traded all these guns and helicopters for wands and dragons?
But, he said this week, that gameplay vision wasn’t the end; it was a way to make a really creative statement, more sophisticated than throwing magical energy beams with your right hand and shielding an attack with the left.
“I’m used to having a split brain, when it comes to ‘OK, I’m developing some of the gameplay mechanics and I’m also developing the world, and they just inform each other,'” Robbins said. Five years after it was chartered, the studio has more than 100 developers and is almost ready to deliver its first work. Immortals of Aveumreleased under Electronic Arts’ EA Originals label.
“But I knew the most important thing about this franchise and this game was to create an immersive world that we can visit again and again,” Robbins said. “People want to spend a lot of time with it, so I think that was the real driver.”
Fifteen years ago, Robbins was creative director at Empty space, an all-new intellectual property with huge, largely implied canon that would eventually serve two sequels and a few spin-offs. Despite that game’s critical success, the studio behind it shut down in 2017. By this time, Robbins had already left for Sledgehammer Games, which he was working on Duty: Advanced warfare, WWII and modern warfare (2019).
His experience with Empty space however, has still stuck around, and it has greatly influenced the development of immortalsRobbins said.
“Start by working immortals reminded me of all those days when all you had was a whiteboard, a blank page and a bunch of crazy ideas,” Robbins said. “I think the process is underway Empty space was kinda similar; we experimented a lot in the beginning, we failed quickly and tried crazy things. But we developed our pillars further Empty space very early, and we stuck with it.
In Empty space‘s case involving things like the unique, in-world heads-up display, and no use of cutscenes or fast-paced events to advance the story, giving the player a sense of unrelenting, sunken suspense that they could’ t escape without leaving the game altogether. For Immortals of Aveum, Robbins and the developers of Ascendant go for the same immersion, only on less terrifying terms. Above all, they want players to be in awe of themselves and get excited simply by hurling energy beams across a battlefield like super-powered battle mages.
“I had our pillars on Immortals of Aveum that I laid out in those first few months of writing, and I stuck to it,” Robbins said. “What can hurt a project the most, especially a new project, is flip-flopping the vision and rebooting the vision, and making wild swings, left and right turns, trying to keep your voice up. find. The most important thing you can do is stick to your guns.
However, that doesn’t mean sticking to your guns is easy. Robbins said to be sure Immortals of Aveumhis fight is exciting, understandable and fast paced, but also quite competitive, has kept him up many nights. “The world already had a strong vision,” he said, “but giving the battle a strong focus and a strong vision [didn’t happen until] almost two years into the project. And at that point we all said, ‘Okay, this is what the game is, we understand the game, now we have to make all the levels and give it our all. Because, you know, making a magic shooter is hard. Many people have done it for a reason.”
Immortals of Aveum will launch on July 20 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X. It is the first title from Ascendant Studios.