EA flop Immortals of Aveum reportedly cost around $125 million, former dev says "a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea"

Personally I would not call Immortals of Aveum an AAA game. 😅

And I mean, that’s maybe where the problems lie. This game is all jank and all generics, with no specific thing to present except “OMG LOOK AT OUR GRAPHICS!!!”. Which are also pretty unoptimized, so you end up with:

  • Only a tiny tiny fraction of players can even play it.
  • Then, the game is utterly generic. Despite how it might look to someone not knowing about it, DOOM 2016 and Eternal are quite unique games and have a very well-designed gameplay flow that even differs divisively between the two.
  • The writing is horrible and would make even an MCU movie/series writer question their decisions in life.
  • The magic is still just guns with replaced graphics. They didn’t lean into the very premise of the game at all. And all they had to do is play Lichdom Battlemage from 2014 to get some ideas and that game already struggled with the concept. But at least it pulled it off.

Can’t really say I’m surprised the game flopped hard. But unlike the dev I would call the underlying idea solid, just not anything about the execution.

chemical_cutthroat,
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world avatar

Big “no one understands my art” vibes coming off that dev. You made a mediocre game for an outrageous amount and released it in one of the heaviest gaming release years in recent memory. Sorry, this year a new IP with a 74% on metacritic doesn’t cut it. They say EA dropped 40mil on the advertising for it, but this is litterally the first I’ve heard about it, and frankly I’m the target audience for this game. I bet this shit was shoved down the throats of Fortnight and Valorant players via tiktok.

tomi000,

Same. Those 40mil probably went into someones pocket, not surprising noone is playing the game

M137,
@M137@lemmy.world avatar

No one is playing it because it’s very “meh”, but it has absolutely been widely advertised and also talked about a lot (for being not so good).

I really doubt any of you who replied here saying you haven’t heard about it ever interact with gaming journalism and community. It has been just as visible as most other AAA games.

Jaysyn,
Jaysyn avatar

I had never heard of it either until this post.

snooggums,
snooggums avatar

This is the first time for me as well, and it sounds likely to be the last.

M137,
@M137@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not really the target audience and I’ve come across it what must be hundreds of times. It has been talked about a lot on anything gaming. Most of the big gaming journalism (good and bad) websites, youtube channels etc have made articles and videos about it.

loobkoob,
loobkoob avatar

I heard about it when Skill Up, whose YouTube channel I have notifications turned on for, posted his review of it. Before that, I'd seen absolutely nothing about it, and I heard very little about it after that, too. I was shocked to find out it was an EA game - partly because it didn't look (visually) polished enough to be an EA game, and partly because of the complete lack of marketing I'd seen for a major publisher game.

Finding out it was an expensive flop and not just a smaller AA game they decided to put out on the side is a surprise, too.

Badeendje,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Also EA has to understand more and more people have experienced their garbage launches and will skip their gold plated launch prices because of the risk you end up buying a lemon that is subsequently abandoned.

Making sure the gameplay loop is interesting and the game performs properly is important. Focussing on all the latest engine features that requires people to have top tier hardware is only good for marketing. Marketing then eats up a tremendous amount of budget without adding anything to the offer they make.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

The last EA game I bought was Jedi: Fallen Order for $4, and I still felt ripped off, because EA adds a mandatory online connection check to every game they release now, including Immortals.

mrfriki,

I’m very into shooters and this was a hard pass because it looked like a generic and boring Call of Duty re-skin and I’m not into that game.

Maybe the problem is not the current AAA or shooters landscape. Maybe it is more about the quality and the fun your games are.

technomad,

Trying to act like it flopped because it’s single player… What a joke.

FMT99,

I think BG3 showed conclusively that no one will ever play single player games no matter how great they are. /s

acosmichippo,
@acosmichippo@lemmy.world avatar

but that was like 6 whole months ago. the market is totally different now. /s

Viking_Hippie, (edited )

I get what you’re saying but FPS specifically are mostly played competitively, so a single player game in THAT specific genre in 2023 sounds like a very bad idea.

Every other genre than FPS needs more games where you’re allowed to only play single player and use tons of mods if you want to without risking being locked out of playing, though.

Fallout New Vegas, Baldurs Gate 3, Skyrim, The Outer Worlds and the older Bioware games are where it’s at for my favorite genre, to name a few examples.

Edit: crossed out mistaken assumption

flamingarms, (edited )

I’m not sure that’s really true what you’re saying about single player FPS games being mostly competitive or that it’s a bad idea. See: Doom, Metro, Ghostwire, Dying Light, System Shock, people seem stoked for Space Marine, etc.

Viking_Hippie,

Fair enough, I’ll retract that part heh

flamingarms,

Props to you for using strikethrough instead of deleting in your edit so the context still makes sense. I think you bring up an interesting point about competitive fps games. I imagine companies structure their development similar to games-as-a-service because they are essentially two flavors of the same thing, right? I had never really considered whether the growth of the competitive scene was part of the drive towards GaaS and away from tight single player experiences.

I think underlying all of this is that publishers want a guaranteed profit margin. That doesn’t exist in art, of course, but they still want it. And if that means choosing what they think is a safe bet, they’ll choose it. I think Bungie made GaaS look way easier than it actually is, and maybe the competitive scene contributed to that too. “Look at all the money these hero shooters are making, let’s get a piece of that pie.” Formulas just never quite work out that simply in real life.

vexikron, (edited )

Yep, nobody enjoyed playing through Half Life 1/2, or FEAR or Deus Ex, or the early Medal of Honor or Call of Duty campaigns, or the Doom series or Battlefield Bad Company or the Wolfenstein Series.

Just because most modern popular FPSs are basically cartoony tf2/overwatch clones/derivatives and there are a lot of highly competitive multiplayer FPSs filled with screaming, racist misosynist babies and manbabies alike doesnt mean theres no market for a single player FPS.

It means that making a single player FPS game these days is apparently too hard for modern game devs to figure out how to do.

Chainweasel,

Single player shooter’s aren’t bad or even unpopular right now. But I think people are beginning to realize that anything that has EA’s name attached to it is trash and just avoid it on principal.

vexikron,

Everyone in the single player fps demo is replaying the old good games, or seeking out like custom doom wads or the occasional actually good indie fps single player game, having at this point long given up on large studios being able to make a compelling single player fps.

Sure, a lot of us enjoy lots of other kinds of games too, but good lord is there an unscratchable itch for a new, compelling FPS campaign thats actually interesting and challenging.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

It's boomer shooters or nothing in that space right now. We're starving out here. On my radar in the coming year or two are Mouse, Core Decay, and Agent 64, but no one knows what kind of quality we'll get out of those. Also, is it a crime to just throw in some competitive multiplayer that's meant to be played a handful of times with friends instead of being the next e-sport?

Badeendje,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Jup, even new iterations of their older IP seem to be devolving instead of taking that which was fun and expanding on it.

Maybe they should use all these behaviour experts to investigate why people keep playing games instead of figuring out how to maximally predate on your customer base.

Ubi does the same. I found the last farcy so Uninteresting that I stopped playing somewhere mid game. And the first signals from their pirate game are also not encouraging, while I know many people that looked forward to it.

twoface_99,

The issue is not the genre “single player (shooter)” itself, but that these big companies just churn out the same generic bullshit and then act surprised when no-one plays it.

AAA studios just don’t have the balls anymore to take a risk and develop something unique. And this is their downfall.

Titanfall 2, Metro Exodus, Ghostwire Tokyo, Doom (to name a few) are all excellent first person shooters. All of them have something unique about them that makes them worthwhile.

Damage,

Titanfall 2

Titanfall 2 had one of the most acclaimed single-player campaigns, with it being only a few hours long and mostly a showcase to get people on multiplayer, and it was still enough.

vexikron,

Quite seriously I am actually looking to attempt to solo indie dev a sort of fps/tactics/management hybrid FPS that would at least start out as single player, and titanfall 2’s gameplay is something I am drawing inspiration from.

My basic idea is: What if you had the squad management and mission planning depth of basically Xenonauts, but you actually played out the missions in first person, with combat systems and load outs and player (and enemy) capabilities that resembled titanfall2’s mix of athletecism and gunplay?

Im in very early stages, but yeah basically titanfall2/xenonauts hybrid with (this is likely the hard part) procedurally generated, 3d levels, strung together with a kind of narrative generation engine, something sort of like rimworld’s system that simulates world conditions and then generates certain events based off of them, but also responds to certain specific things you do or do not do in mission, or what missions you choose to embark on over others.

Probably Im gonna focus on core gameplay systems and not really worry about graphics or assets at all until I can get any of this to an actual working concept level.

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

So like Rainbow Six 1-3's mission planning mode?

vexikron,

Probably similar in many ways, but ideally I would like to make it as or more in depth with other features from something like xenonauts.

Youve got resources such as vehicles of differing kinds you may choose to deploy or not, but you have to store them somewhere and also be able to repair them. All this comes from pools of funding from at first probably just completing a mission according to guidelines, but some things take maybe an R&D program or just outright raiding a rival faction or something.

Maybe you want to go a more special forces type route and have a few exceptionally well trained / equipped soldiers and leverage things like helicopters to do infil and exfil and leverage the element of surprise.

Maybe you want to act more like a conventional military and go with larger numbers with decent equipment and a wider array of possible vehicles and support systems.

Maybe you want to focus as much as possible on gathering intel before missions, maybe you want a more intelligent active battlefield info you can access in mission via various sensors.

So… what I am aiming for is something that eventually allows for a more broad array of mission profiles and sort of map archetypes, which, depending on many factors, will have surprises that may occur, like an enemy force having the ability to call for reinforcements that maybe you did not know about, and might force you to withdraw.

Or maybe some missions will take place with a relatively high number of civillian AI running around and your org you work for/run will suffer massively if you just go scorched earth.

I dunno, these are all ambitions at this point, and Im going to focus on at the very least getting a functional combat prototype done first, and then testing out how well that and what I can make combat AI actually do actually works.

Its possible I’ll find some kind of thing that really works well, or really doesn’t work, and change scope significantly.

So far all I have really figured out is that a near future setting would seem to work best with the scope of either my minimal working concept, or a more extended version of it.

???

ampersandrew,
ampersandrew avatar

Best of luck. But yes, there's a good chance your scope is too large, so definitely start small.

vexikron,

Oh hey Im surprised that all even posted, my connection crapped out right as I hit send.

But uh haha yeah.

My one saving grace is I have a lot of time on my hands.

But I expect it to take probably at least 6 months before I even have what Id consider a working combat prototype with a variety of different weapons and Ai routines, and maybe a barebones model of a procedural map generator.

Im guessing that me soloing a whole project like this could take 3 years, but if I can get a prototype working, I might have enough money to pay for some 3D assets to speed up dev time a bit.

Almost certainly not enough money to hire anyone lol, and I really really do not want to do kickstarter or early access and deal with the community and possible total failure.

Im the exact opposite of a PR person.

Hyperreality,

Goes to show that making a good game is still more art than science.

Hell, make a broken or buggy game, if it has the special something it'll still likely become a classic.

Eg. Fallout New Vegas or Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

yamanii,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

Titanfall 2 also bombed, even a good game can flop if your marketing sucks or if you release it next to other massive hits.

Cethin,

And I mean, that’s maybe where the problems lie. This game is all jank and all generics, with no specific thing to present except “OMG LOOK AT OUR GRAPHICS!!!”.

This is exactly what AAA gaming is. Some guys in suits dictate projects to make money. There’s no passion behind them. They can’t do anything unique or interesting because it may not make money. They just make safe games, and they’re generic and boring as hell.

HawlSera,

Maybe if you market it at all so that I’ve actually fucking heard of it that’ll help?

RampantParanoia2365,

“a AAA single-player shooter in today’s market was a truly awful idea”

Fucking what? Why? What in the actual fuck?

Blackmist,

You have to remember that they mentally block out the idea that their game was a bag of wank.

steeznson,

This game was the most AA shit I’ve ever seen. In the PS2 days it would have got a 7.5 average from most reviewers then it would have had a not-insignificant number of people pick it up.

They are delusional for thinking a UE5 asset flip is a AAA game.

ExfilBravo,

Wait for the “Body Cam” games to flood the market with their UE5 asset flips. Its all shit.

Draedron,

I would love an AAA single player shooter. If it is done well and fun. So no chance EA could do it

guacupado,

EA is a truly awful idea. I’m curious if their sports games are the only thing keeping them in business.

HawlSera,

Well that, The Sims and the Star Wars license…

reverendsteveii,

I play a lot of single player shooters. One thing they all have in common is that I know they exist, which I’m thinking could potentially be part of the problem with this one. Based on reactions in this thread it seems like a lot of people are in the same position I’m in, where the first they hear of the game is when it’s being pronounced a flop. I’m getting big The Producers vibes.

rainynight65,

Unlike many people in this thread, I actually have heard of the game. The makers of a podcast I follow loved it, and had the head of the studio on their show for a pretty frank interview, too. When I learned that there was a free demo, I decided I would give the game a try some time.

And in light of the overwhelming negativity in this thread, I did so last night. And what can I say? I spent an hour and change going through the prologue, the training and the first battle sequence, and I really enjoyed it. Movement and shooting slinging magic are great fun, with a diversity of spells available pretty much from the get-go. Just shoot, or throw a massive armor-breaking spell at a wave of enemies, or use a lash to pull a remote enemy close and whack them. I wouldn’t have know what to expect from the ‘CoD with magic’ premise but it’s really enjoyable so far.

The voice acting is very good, and while the facial animations are a bit uncanny valley, I am enjoying the snarky dialogues and matching facial expressions. Gina Torres has presence, and the rest of the cast so far blends in fine.

I will definitely spend some more time with the demo, and if it doesn’t annoy me too much, I might just buy this. And that seems to be the feedback the devs got from many people - once players actually get their hands on it, they actually enjoy it. According ton the studio head, sales have picked up towards Christmas, and they’ve been getting a lot of conversions from the free demo.

hswolf,
@hswolf@lemmy.world avatar

I think the problem is just that, the game is… okay, not bad or good, just okay, unremarkable and forgettable.

If you want good sales you need to do something innovative and interesting, or something cliché but really well done.

Taking a look at Doom 2016 (also a single player shooter) we can see the core gameplay: Shoot demons, Pick up ammo, Shoot more demons. But it’s crafted so masterfully that you spend dozens or hundreds of hours doing just that.

Now with this game that I actually forgot the name mid comment, It’s… well you get the ideia.

rainynight65,

If you want good sales you need to do something innovative and interesting, or something cliché but really well done.

Or a recognisable brand. Starfield got panned and still sold oodles.

Taking a look at Doom 2016 (also a single player shooter)

Case in point. Doom has a lot riding on its name and legacy, and many people will buy it just because of that.

Blackmist,

I had to look up a video to realise this wasn’t the “I guess that’s something I do now” game.

Looks like a confusing mess of a game tbh. When a game’s failure is blamed on it being released close to fucking Starfield, you know it never had much going for it.

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