And if ever a game fails, you can just point to the audience and say, “Well, clearly, they don’t want it.” Now, largely due to the success of games like Fortnite, we’re seeing a repeat of the trend-players ONLY want online Battle Royale games or live-service style games that MAYBE have a single-player mode tacked onto them.ĭespite the failures of high-profile games like Evolve, Anthem, Fallout 76, Marvel’s Avengers, Babylon’s Fall,and most recently Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League-to say nothing of the mountain of less notable corpses these examples lay upon-the industry has once again decided what we want and will keep attempting to pump the well until it sputters up rocks. The industry-by which I mean publishers-decided gamers didn’t want horror games until the indie scene proved that idea wrong. It wasn’t that long ago that the industry had decided the majority of gamers didn’t want single-player games, and a plethora of titles were made as online multiplayer only. You need only type “single-player games dead” into Google to find a cornucopia of stories stretching back years about studios proclaiming the supposed terribleness of releasing a single-player game. Setting aside that the AAA industry is rife with stories of games that do reasonably well but are still listed as “failing to meet expectations,” we’ve been down this road before. It was the way the former Ascendant Studios developer was quick to point the finger at the consumer, rather than the broken industry they need to operate in, that not only bothered me but gave me a sense of déjà vu. “Immortals of Aveum failed for a number of reasons, and none of them were ‘releasing a single-player shooter in 2023.'” The same market where games like Resident Evil Village, Cyberpunk 2077(even with all its issues), Robocop: Rogue City, Remnant 2, Metal Hellsinger and a whole host of others could see both commercial and critical acclaim? No, Immortals of Aveum didn’t fail in this industry, the industry failed it. The game never had a chance.įurthermore, the very idea that releasing a single-player shooter in “today’s market” would be a “terrible idea” is just pure poppycock. Instead, it was released on August 22nd, 2023-a few days before Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon and a couple of weeks before the console launch of Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfieldand Mortal Kombat 1. Almost every critic agreed it was Call of Duty: Magic Edition-I believe Stephanie Sterling described it best as “aggressively mediocre.” But Immortals of Aveum could’ve probably gotten by if it had been released during one of the drier months for gaming, with a little bit of fanfare-the developer claims EA kicked in 40 million for marketing, but I know I didn’t see a single ad for it. It was a game that had a solid premise but failed to craft anything unique or interesting.
If you take a second to consider reality, then it becomes pretty apparent that Immortals of Aveum failed for a number of reasons, and none of them were “releasing a single-player shooter in 2023.”
On February 13, 2024, an anonymous former employee of Ascendant Studios claimed-regarding the commercial failure of Immortals of Aveum-that “trying to make a triple-A single-player shooter in today’s market was a truly awful idea.” It was the kind of quote that really stuck with me, not just for how profoundly inaccurate it was but because it was drearily repetitive.