this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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Personally I would not call Immortals of Aveum an AAA game. πŸ˜…

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.

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[–] [email protected] 239 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I had never heard of it either until this post.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 180 points 9 months ago (6 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 88 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

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

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[–] rustydrd 134 points 9 months ago (7 children)

The development cost was around $85 million, and I think EA kicked in $40 million for marketing and distribution.

Apparently, $40 million doesn't buy you much in today's market, because I've literally never heard of this game until now.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Probably spent it all on cable TV ads, where their audience ain't at.

Or just blow and hookers.

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[–] [email protected] 120 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 110 points 9 months ago (8 children)

I would eat up a single player story driven fps no problem.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Doom (2016) and Wolfenstein TNO both proved that AAA single player story-driven fps can be hugely successful.

They just need to, y’know, not be shit.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Doom eternal was amazing.

I never even heard of this, but I wouldn't buy it anyways because EA.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

exactly. maybe you guys just made a shitty game and can't accept that.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I play a lot of games but Ive never heard of this game before this post

[–] [email protected] 68 points 9 months ago (6 children)

"Nobody bought our game we didn't market. Guess we'll stop making an entire genre of games."

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I mean, it's my favorite genre, so if EA can stay the fuck away from it, that's not a bad outcome

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

They claim to have spent 40 million usd marketing it, I saw some people on twitch playing it when it first came out but it looked meh and was priced way too high so I didn’t watch much

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 9 months ago (16 children)

I think EA makes games like this to reinforce THEIR notion that single player games are dead so they can use that as leverage to make more "games as a service". If they made things people actually wanted to play, they'd find that single player (yes even shooter) games are still just as popular as they ever were and poorly thought out, poorly executed, and poorly marketed games still suck.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Case in point. Baldurs gate 3.

Single player (with optional co op multiplayer) but massively successful.

Not to beat a dead horse. Its just the first example that came to mind.

A huge amount of very successful indie games are single-player and even other AAA games.

They talk about the genre being dead but they forget that most games dont charge you to play them anymore. They make money through in game purchases selling cosmetics and battle pasees.

These game genres could be described as dead by the same criteria if they cost actual money.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 59 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Literally the first I've heard about it as well. Maybe should have tossed a bit of that money at the marketing department.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They did, 40million of the budget went to marketing

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 61 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Peak player count was less than 800 players on steam... Flop is an understatement.

Those 100 workers EA laid off dont deserve to be thrown in the trash; why dont the execs take a nice paycut instead?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I think companies that make profits should not be allowed to lay off people. Youβ€˜re welcome.

Edit: without cause

[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Orrrr it was a mid game with almost no marketing.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea"

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2009100/Immortals_of_Aveum/

1.1k reviews 75% positive

https://store.steampowered.com/app/379720/DOOM/ (2016)

125k reviews 95%

Git gud, EA, and make an actually competing product.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Of course, Doom doesn't exist right

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Is this a single player shooter? I thought it was multi player? And theres nothing wrong with single player shooters β€œin todays market” look at jedi fallen order great game and singlr player. But a shit game is a shit game single or multi.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

It's worse than shit, it's mediocre.

At least people talk about shit games, which means some people buy a copy just because they're curious.

Mediocre stuff? No one's interested.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'll go counter-current here and say that it was a fun game. IGN review sells it really well, and I had fun while playing it. I'd say the main problem of the game was releasing in a year already full of big-name releases, and a marketing campaign that was too quiet - I'm honestly surprised it cost $40 million, because I only heard of the game by pure chance.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Yeah I will say, it's painfully generic and I hate the MCU-style humor, but it's not a bad game per se. It's just in no way shape or form triple-A, except for looking rather snazzy.

The worst offense to me though is how there's no magic in the game. Just guns with weird graphics. They managed to not make the magic feel like, well, magic. That's the big flaw of it to me. Everything else is minor by comparison. Still, not a bad game, just not a good one either. At least for me.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"a AAA single-player shooter in today's market was a truly awful idea"

Fucking what? Why? What in the actual fuck?

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I tried the demo, it has a lot of problems outside of it being a AAA single player shooter. The "magic" system is just reskinned guns, the story is nonsensical at times, and the movement is stiff and slow. It's like they never play tested the game and just said it was done one day. That's not even mentioning the almost ten minute walk around the city at the beginning doing nothing but following what I will assume is a non critical character to the plot.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

Someone stole $40 million of EA's money and didn't advertise another horrible cashgrab?

"I'm not even mad, I'm.. impressed!"

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Because EA games is weak. It’s all retreads of ancient franchises or bloated games with no risks taken.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

This is the first time I've ever even heard of it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

If you don't have a vision, don't try to turn money into more money by making a game. Everyone loses. Dumping money on assets doesn't make your trope copy/paste any better than the other million cheap Chinese clones on an app store.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Not at that price point, of course. Ultrakill has a sub 2 million USD budget, its one of the most critically praised games on Steam, and its not even finished yet. I can't look up Steamcharts at work but I have good reason to believe its more than made back its production budget.

Live service games are starting to turn into a very expensive scam and if you can't make a good single player game, you need to cut costs somewhere. AAA production budgets are just too huge and the product isn't good.

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