Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios lays off almost half its staff

Ascendant Studios, the developer of the first-person-shooter-but-with-magic title Immortals of Aveum, is laying off nearly half of its team only a few weeks after releasing the game. CEO Bret Robbins confirmed that the company would be letting go of around 45 percent of its workers. According to Polygon, which first reported the news, that's around 40 people.

"This was a painfully difficult, but necessary decision that was not made lightly; nevertheless, we have to make this adjustment now that Immortals of Aveum has shipped," Robbins wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Ascendant will offer the laid-off workers severance packages and help with finding a job elsewhere. The remaining team members will continue to support the game for the time being.

Immortals of Aveum is the first game from Ascendant, which is an independent studio with experienced developers at the helm. However, publisher EA likely didn't do the game any favors with its release date.

After a delay pushed back the game by a month to August 22, Immortals of Aveum arrived at around the same time as Baldur’s Gate III, Armored Core VI and Starfield. Delaying Immortals of Aveum by an extra few weeks probably wouldn't have helped either, given that we're going into one of the busiest spells of major game releases for several years.

Reports suggest that Immortals of Aveum (which largely garnered middling reviews) didn't sell well, and low player counts on Steam indicate that's the case. It had a peak player count of just 751 on that platform, according to SteamDB. Starfield's peak player count on Steam alone is more than 440 times that number.