A new report by IGN into the wider topic of industry layoffs, which are worse than they've ever been, contains a fascinating insight about one of last year's less-successful AAA titles. Immortals of Aveum was the debut title from Ascendant Studios, released on Steam and consoles in August 2022, came out to mixed reviews and largely sank without trace: PCG's review called it a fun magical FPS that "fails to cast any new spells" on the way to a 68% score.
The thing is, EA had invested big in this game, and Ascendant had some firm ideas about what the game-playing public might want from it. Immortals of Aveum had a launch party where developers were asking higher-ups about how the game's sales looked, and were met with evasive answers. Shortly afterwards, citing the game's underperformance, almost half the studio was laid off, around 50 people in total.
