It continues to be a difficult time at Ascendant Studios, the developers behind last year’s magical shooter flop Immortals of Aveum, as it’s claimed that the studio have now furloughed most of their staff – only a matter of months after almost half of their employees were laid off.
According to a LinkedIn post from former principal engineer Kris Morness (via Eurogamer) – and since corroborated by Polygon journalist Nicole Carpenter – the majority of employees at the studio have been furloughed. The exact number of those affected is unknown, with Ascendant yet to confirm or publicly comment on the decision, but Morness estimated that approximately 30 staff had been affected.
The latest report follows a rough launch for the studio – founded in 2019 by ex-Call of Duty and Dead Space creative director Bret Robbins – and its magic-FPS Immortals of Aveum.
Aveum released to middling reviews last August, with 45% of Ascendant – around 40 people at the time – laid off less than a month later due to reportedly “poor sales” of its debut title, which apparently cost $125 million to make and was bought by “no one”. Even so, Robbins later said that the studio would continue to support the game and invest in the franchise in the future, later suggesting it had the potential to find new fans and become somewhat of a cult classic in the years to come.
By most accounts (including our own Alice B’s), Immortals of Aveum is far from bad – and is, in fact, fairly good in places – but it lacked anything that might help it stand out in what continues to be an incredible time for video games and an incredibly hard time for those making video games. Best of luck to those over at Ascendant.