What Standard Shooters Can Learn from Immortals of Aveum

Summary

Immortals of Aveum offers a refreshing twist on the standard FPS formula, incorporating fantasy tropes and fast-paced action for an exciting gameplay experience that other titles can learn from.
The game's customizable weapons and loadout options allow players to personalize their playstyle and create unique loadouts that suit their strengths.
Immortals of Aveum introduces innovative combat mechanics, such as using magical chains and arcane artifacts, providing players with additional ways to eliminate enemies beyond simply shooting.

Providing players with a surprisingly entertaining mix of fantasy tropes and fast-paced action, Immortals of Aveum’s is an unexpected and exciting break from first-person shooter norms. While it’s easy to spot the many ways in which Ascendant Studios head Bret Robbins’ years spent working on franchises like Call of Duty influenced the fantasy shooter, Immortals of Aveum still offers plenty of welcome twists on the familiar FPS formula that keep it feeling fresh. Just as the unorthodox EA Originals release has taken some of the best elements of the FPS genre and retooled them to fit the game’s magical setting, standard shooters could benefit by taking a few pages from Immortals of Aveum’s playbook.

The idea of a magic-based shooter is nothing new in and of itself, and fantasy FPS games have been around practically since the genre began. While Raven Software’s 1995 classic Hexen: Beyond Heretic remains one of the most well-known titles in the admittedly small subgenre, in recent years games like developer Indefatigable’s well-received magical shooter Amid Evil have helped introduce the fantasy FPS format to new audiences. Where Immortals of Aveum succeeds in moving the genre forward, and where it can teach some lessons to standard shooters, is in its upgradable and customizable weapons and the variety of ways it lets players dispatch their enemies.

Immortals of Aveum’s Customizable Weapons Provide a Good Lesson for Standard Shooters

While long-time fans of FPS games are accustomed to being able to upgrade and customize their weapons in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and other primarily multiplayer-focused shooters, it's less common for players to be able to personalize their loadout for single-player campaigns. Immortals of Aveum bucks this trend by letting gamers customize their weapons throughout its campaign, letting players focus on the ones that best suit their personal playstyle. This helps make each weapon feel unique and lets gamers create a loadout that plays to their individual strengths.

Each of Immortals of Aveum’s sigils corresponds to a familiar weapon type from the FPS genre. Blue and green sigils serve as stand-ins for long-range rifles and SMGs respectively, while red sigils function similarly to shotguns. Despite slotting nicely into the standard weapon archetypes, different sigils have different strengths and weaknesses that can be upgraded throughout the game. Players who enjoy eliminating enemies from a safe distance might prefer blue sigils with low ammo capacity but deadly accuracy, while those more interested in close-quarters combat could choose to max out a red sigil that trades increased stopping power for a drastically wider firing arc.

Sigils Are Only One Part of Immortals of Aveum’s Fast-Paced Combat

Another lesson that standard shooters can take from Immortals of Aveum is giving players more options for eliminating enemies than just ceaselessly holding down the fire button. While the game’s magic-blasting sigils will always deliver the killing blow, players can use various items to enhance and augment their abilities in combat. From pulling foes in close with a magical chain before delivering the killing blow in a manner reminiscent of Bulletstorm’s energy leash to using arcane artifacts to disrupt enemy shields, players have multiple ways to manage encounters even before the shooting starts.

Adding enhanced abilities like these obviously wouldn’t work for every FPS game, and could even serve to break the sense of immersion in realism-focused franchises, but giving players more options for dealing with opponents is something more shooters should embrace. Although games like Doom Eternal have taken a similar approach to combat as Immortals of Aveum, giving players more to do in a firefight than just blast away nonstop, they remain the exception in the FPS genre.

With weapons that produce screen-filling blasts of magical energy with every use, the colorful combat of Immortals of Aveum may not land with every player. But, even when you strip away the spectacular set dressing around its first-person combat, the Ascendant Studios’ title still offers up some solid gameplay mechanics that standard shooters could benefit greatly from adopting.