Any fan of first-person shooters has handled a wide variety of digital weaponry in their gaming career. We’ve fired historical weapons while storming the beaches of Normandy, shot modern guns in modern warfare, and used futuristic blasters in sci-fi shooters. One thing we don’t often do in FPSes, though, is cast spells. That will change with Immortals of Aveum, a magic shooter that replaces mechanical weapons with magical abilities. In a recent hands-off preview, I got a look at this upcoming shooter, and I’m intrigued to see more.
Pitched as a “single-player, story-driven, magic shooter,” Immortals of Aveum appears to live up to that tagline, based on what I saw. The combat shares many ideas with the military shooters we know and love. You can cast spells that act as long-range rifles, shotguns, grenades, and the like. But since it’s magic that fuels your capabilities, you also have access to additional moves you won’t find in traditional shooters.
Say the Magic Word
For instance, the Lash spell lets you pull distant enemies close using what looks like a rope made of blue plasma. Then you can cast the Shatter spell to slam them with a wall of spikes. If you’re feeling overwhelmed in combat, you can use a Blink spell to teleport out of harm’s way. It all happens quickly, and you can chain together your attacks and abilities in combos.
Since magic fuels your capabilities, you have access to moves you won’t find in traditional shooters.
If you’re taking damage, you can cast a shield spell for extra protection, but that slows your movement speed. When enemies use shields, you can break through them by unloading a barrage of magic of the same color. There’s blue, red, and green magic in Aveum, and each one represents a particular category of spells. All told, you can learn and upgrade 25 spells during the course of the campaign, and work through a skill tree to learn 80 talents for use in combat and other situations.
I have to say, the magical combat at the very least looks incredibly stylish, with colorful swirls, beams, and explosions of sparks going off all over the battlefield.
Put on Your Thinking Cap
Unlike some shooters, combat is only part of the picture in Immortals of Aveum. The developers say there’s plenty of room for exploration, and those who poke around the levels might discover hidden areas and helpful items.
There’s also an emphasis on puzzle solving. One of the gameplay demos showed Jak, the protagonist, in a room with no apparent exit. To proceed, he had to figure out how to raise two pillars, use the Lash spell to reach an otherwise inaccessible area, and solve a light beam puzzle.
His reward for doing all that? A giant, terrifying golem-like creature rose out of the ground and attacked, starting a tense battle before the demo came to an end.
The World of Aveum
While magic is what makes Immortals of Aveum stand out in the FPS space, the world of Aveum isn’t a typical fantasy setting. The demo did show Jak fighting a dragon, but there’s also a strong sci-fi element here that coexists with the more traditional fantasy trappings. The denizens of Aveum are space-faring people, with access to futuristic aircraft and modern military techniques like combat drops into warzones.
And conflict is rampant; for as long as anyone can remember, the denizens of Aveum have been engaged in an Everwar. Your character is from the nation of Lucium, whose interests are protected by the Immortals, an elite group of battle mages. Lucium’s main foe is Rasharn, whose forces are led by Sandrakk, a powerful armor-clad mage who bears a suspicious resemblance to Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. Sandrakk’s goal is to take control of all magic in order to dominate the entire planet.
There’s also a strong sci-fi element here that coexists with the more traditional fantasy trappings.
You play as Jak, a Triarch, or a mage with the rare ability to control all three colors of magic. Because of his abilities, Jak gets recruited by the Immortals as a relative novice, and players guide his progression through the ranks as he becomes an elite battle mage himself.
Immortals of Aveum is about 25 hours long and, from the demo I saw, features some high quality acting talent. It stars actors like Gina Torres and Daren Barnet, who you may recognize from Firefly and Never Have I Ever, respectively.
FPS Chops
If you watch the trailers for Immortals of Aveum and think the combat looks like Call of Duty but with magic, there’s a good reason for that. It’s being developed by Ascendant Studios, led by Bret Robbins, who was creative director on the original Dead Space before heading to Sledgehammer to work on numerous Call of Duty games in the 2010s. The rest of the development team is made up of people who worked on franchises like BioShock, Halo, and Call of Duty, as well as a number of former Telltale Games folks.
The one obvious thing that’s missing from Immortals is multiplayer. This is a single-player-only campaign, and when asked if the team had considered a multiplayer mode, Robbins said the thought had occurred to them, but he had nothing to announce at the time.
In any case, I’m eager to get my hands on Immortals of Aveum when it releases on June 20 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Until then, this looks like a new FPS to keep an eye on.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed or on Mastodon @chrislreed.
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