Immortals of Aveum | Review in 3 Minutes
The Escapist 3 Minute Review Immortals of Aveum is a First Person Shooter from Ascendant studios and EA’s Originals label that gives the usual modern military set-up a magical makeover. In the world of Aveum five kingdoms have been fighting for centuries over the control of magic in a conflict referred to as the Everwar. When Jak, an orphan kid living in the slums of the Kingdom of Lucium, explodes with magical power during an attack on the city; he’s drafted into military service and rises to join the ranks of the most elite battle mages in the world, the
Immortals. The game’s plot balances its focus on Jack’s personal vendetta well with the bigger political forces that have caused the unending warfare. The setting is rich with interesting and believable history, with a tense climate of classism and tyranny that treats the subjects with nuance. I not only found myself fully invested in the story, but also in its cast of characters. They are funny, multifaceted, and share convincing chemistry. Even the few optional side characters you can speak to have interesting things to say that flesh out the world in remarkable ways, like a foot soldier you eventually
learn is the product of vicious imperial propaganda. Gameplay is a mix of magical firefights, puzzle solving, and exploration on a large interconnected map of several separate zones. You’ll need to
spells like Lash, which acts as a magic grappling hook, while others like Shatter summon a wall of Jack jagged rock strictly for warfare. Along with the sigils, other gear like bracers and rings can be found, upgraded, and crafted to micromanage what I felt was an unnecessary amount of minute stats. There is a full skill tree, with more consequential passive buffs for your abilities, like adding corrosion effects to some spells, but other than raw damage output I rarely noticed any differences in combat thanks to my gear numbers. Despite that, enemy encounters are largely fun. There is
a good variety from a few different factions, and exploiting their magic based weaknesses can be a tough challenge when they’re mixed into the same fight. Jak moves swiftly, and his mobility includes a double jump, hover, and dodge, as well as a shield for defense. However, the rush of enemies can sometimes be too chaotic, leaving you confused as to where heavy damage is coming from. Adding to that confusion is a slightly unintuitive mapping of all your powers that would leave me forgetting what I had equipped occasionally. Boss fights don’t really force you to change much of
your rhythm, and rely a bit heavily on spongy health bars. They were at least always a great showing of the high level of spectacle Immortals of Aveum boasts. The production value of this game is easily apparent. Its huge and gorgeous environments are packed with detail. Character models and facial animations lose none of the excellent performances from actors Darren Barnet and Gina Torres. With fittingly beautiful music scoring my roughly 18 hour playthrough. And you could easily spend several more hours exploring areas that can be revisited to clean up secrets and do challenge rooms. Immortals of Aveum
honestly took me by surprise. Its world is deep, and I didn’t expect to love its story and cast of characters as much as I did. Its magic based shooter gameplay freshens up some of the monotony found in the genre, and despite some minor combat annoyances, was a fun roller coaster ride I’d highly recommend. The game is out August 22nd for $69.99 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHER WRITTEN & EDITED BY KC NWOSU Closed Captions by @willcblogs
