Back in 2018, Ascendant Studios rose from the ashes of Telltale games. The company announced Immortals of Aveum a few years later at The Game Awards 2022 and, after a delay, the game finally launched in August 2023.
Immortals of Aveum plays like a first-person shooter, but instead of traditional guns, you’re blasting different types of magic from your hands. It builds its own world and lore rather than licensing a beloved franchise, though sometimes it gets a little heavy-handed. Here’s my full review.
Immortals of Aveum
Immortals of Aveum is a first-person shooter at its core, but it swaps out traditional guns and phasers for magic powers. It has deep lore and interesting characters that go along with the fun gameplay. Version tested: Xbox Series X
Pros
- Fast gameplay
- Beautiful visuals
- Interesting supporting characters
- Great voice acting
Cons
- Switching spells can be a little clunky
- Lore can get a little heavy-handed
- Bland main character
A Jak of all… magic
In a world of video game sequels, it’s nice to see the launch of a new universe with Immortals of Aveum. Granted, the core plot isn’t necessarily the most original, but the world surrounding the story of Jak is quite deep and filled with lore, assuming you’re willing to dig in and read it. Like many modern games, elements of the world are tucked into written lore, accessed through the game’s menu system, but you can absolutely play through the game without engaging with any of that, if you don’t want to.
The story of the main character Jak isn’t exactly innovative: your town is attacked, you seek revenge for a fallen friend, and you just so happen to possess special powers that make you more powerful than the average soldier. Rather than only wielding one colour of magic like most, you can use all three as a Triarch. As such, Jak’s skills are highly desirable for the Everwar, an endless fight over the powerful magic flowing through the world of Aveum.
While the setup for the story is certainly one we’ve seen a million times across various entertainment mediums, there are enough twists and turns along Jak’s path to keep you interested and engaged throughout, even if it gets a bit heavy-handed at times. Knowing the game comes from ex-Telltale developers sheds light on the quality of the story, as Telltale Games are all about – well – telling a great tale, with gameplay coming somewhat second.
There are some parts of the game where Jak can be a little annoying while also feeling bland and generic, especially early on. His having the extraordinary powers of a Triarch makes him more powerful than others, and he seems to want to let everyone know this a little too often. Thankfully, the voice work by the entire cast is so good that it makes up for the angsty main character. Between that and the animation, the characters feel alive, and you actually start to care about what happens to them as the story progresses. Even Jak comes around in the end and becomes pretty likeable.
A shooter at its core
Watching the trailers and reading about Immortals of Aveum might make you think this is a spell-casting RPG. However, it’s a shooter, but instead of guns, Jak is equipped with bracers on his wrist that let him shoot different magic powers out of his hands. The colour of magic defines the basic versions of these, and each behaves like a gun you might find in a traditional shooter. Blue is like a single-shot long-range rifle. Green is rapid-fire, suitable for a medium range like an SMG. Red is like a shotgun for close-range encounters. There are different types of each colour bracer that will drop from enemies, but they tend to follow this general principle.
Where things get a little more interesting is with the spells. These are more like something you might find in Destiny 2, not Call of Duty. You need various resources to cast these powerful spells, and they help vary the gameplay tremendously. And there are tools like a whip that lets you pull enemies toward you and items that slow down time. While Immortals of Aveum is a shooter at its most basic level, there are more than enough extra layers to make the combat feel frantic and frenetic.
That brings us to one of the issues with the gameplay: switching between the different weapon and spell combinations can sometimes feel a little clunky. There are a lot of resources to keep track of and button combinations to access the spells, and it can feel a little overwhelming. The game does an excellent job of doling out new powers over time, but once you have everything, it requires a lot of flipping between abilities. There’s a high skill ceiling for players who want to get into the systems, but if you just want to shoot bad guys with magic powers, you might get frustrated until you get accustomed.
One problem with the combat and gameplay that’s all too common in shooters is the predictability of battles. In Immortals, you almost always walk down some corridor or path, and combat begins as soon as it opens up. Once you start to notice the pattern, it takes some of the excitement out of combat since you almost always tell when an assault from the enemy is coming. The level design clearly accommodates the space required for the fight. Still, the core mechanics are fun enough to let that slide, as blowing enemies away with magic powers is always fun.
Immortal of Aveum also has some RPG elements. You’ll build Jak’s level, give him new gear, and choose talents based on magic colours. This adds a fun sense of progression to the gameplay and makes Jak feel stronger and more powerful as you tackle more difficult enemies throughout the game.
Visually stunning
The game’s graphics and overall visual style are one of the standout features. Every detail, from the character’s facial animations to the wide-open setpieces, feels carefully crafted and realistic. The three magic types being tied to red, green, and blue means there are lots of colourful explosions happening during the heat of battle, which further creates an attractive visual style that feels like a “next-generation” game. This is a good thing because this is an Xbox Series S/X and PS5 game, right down to the $70 price point on those platforms (it’s $60 on PC).
I tested the game on Xbox Series X, and it feels like the kind of game that needs the power offered by the current generation of consoles rather than a slightly bumped-up Xbox One and PS4 game. During some battles, a lot is happening on the screen. Your powers explode everywhere, enemies shoot their abilities back at you, and backgrounds and scenes feel alive. It feels like a lot for a console to handle, but in our experience, it ran smoothly without a single noticeable frame-rate hitch.
Verdict
I like Immortals of Aveum, even if I can’t say I love it. It has some flaws but also intense combat with a vast skill ceiling that’ll hook you in if you let it. The story is engaging, even if the main character is a mix between overly self-important and bland. If you like first-person shooters but want a change of pace from the typical guns and phasers, and like the idea of shooting magic powers from your hands instead, you’ll have a lot of fun with Immortals of Aveum. Even if you don’t choose to engage with the written lore, there are enough twists and turns in the story to keep you entertained for the 20 or so hours it’ll take you to blast through the game.