Immortals of Aveum Review: Pick a colour, and a side

A solid core and some strong lore make up for a few missteps.

Immortals of Aveum is the latest EA Original, this time from new developer Ascendant Studios. If you’ve heard of it, you’ve most likely seen it likened to a shooter that uses magic instead of guns.

While that’s technically accurate, that description doesn’t do the title justice. This is Doom, mixed with Destiny, mixed with Control… and the result is pretty magical.

Gaming references aside, I prefer to think of Aveum as high fantasy mixed with Green Lantern, and with some Infinity Gauntlet thrown in for good measure. You play as Jak (voiced by Darren Barnet), a carefree ne’er-do-well mostly oblivious to the Everwar that’s being waged around him. Aveum’s five kingdoms are locked in eternal struggle, each trying to wield the world’s magic for itself. Most magic wielders from these kingdoms can control just one form, each handily identified by colour — red is aggressive and full of rage, green is the source of life and healing, and so on.

Content to live his life as a street urchin, the war directly impacts Jak on one fateful day; the grief he feels reveals he can control all the colours of magic, making him one of the game’s titular Immortals. Play really begins five years after this inciting incident, with Jak a soldier in an army controlled by General Kirkan, as voiced by Firefly and Destiny‘s Gina Torres. Kirkan and her forces are in direct combat against Sandrakk (Steven Brand), a Lord Zedd look-a-like who seems close to claiming Aveum’s magic and ending his opponents once and for all.

A first-person affair, Jak has all three types of magic — blue, red and green — under his control, alongside a shield, a double jump and a blink-like dodge. He’s also equipped with gadgets that allow him to disrupt enemy casts, grapple onto swing points, slow enemies and objects, and more. As he progresses through the roughly 15-hour campaign, Jak will be able to pick up and craft new gear that amplifies his outputs, and upgrade gear to work to whichever playstyle that’s preferred.

Jak also has super attacks that require Mana; they include a red blast of rage, a blue attack that erupts large, earthy spikes at the feet of opponents, and the like. He also has a super-move that requires Dominion energy, manifested as a Dragon Ball-style Kamehameha.

Playing on normal difficulty, I largely stuck with the blue magic; it’s long range and quite devastating, especially when critical hits (headshots, for the most part) are performed. There are enemies that glow red, blue or green; while you’re going to finish them off quicker by swapping out to the same colour of magic, they’ll nonetheless go down from whatever you’re hitting them with. Red magic is more shotgun-like for close combat, while green magic is rapid-fire and has a homing element to it.

While Ascendant does a good job of slowly introducing Jak’s powers to the player, things nonetheless get complicated in big battles; hitting Y to swap out your coloured magic sometimes means you’ll need to cycle through a couple times because you thought that red followed green, not preceded it. It’s for these reasons that I stuck with long range combat, slowing bigger enemies while I pelted them with blue-based critical hits from afar. Initially armed with three Mana-sapping powers and a fairly weak shield, I found that close quarters combat was simply too difficult; the time it takes to reload or activate Mana- or health-boosting consumables usually led to my demise.

If focusing on Aveum as a shooter, it’s certainly equal parts Doom and Destiny. Combat environments are largely reminiscent of id Software’s work; you certainly know when you’re about to walk into a kill chamber and see baddies teleport in. You’ll also spend some encounters looking for that last straggler so you can continue on. Powers manifest themselves much in the same way as Destiny‘s non-gun stuff; when you get the hang of balancing your shield with blink and some spells, you really do feel all-powerful.

There’s more too it than just that, though. Aveum has a significant level of verticality and intrigue just like Remedy’s Control; you’re rewarded for thinking outside the box in both combat and exploration. While I said that Aveum does a good job drip-feeding powers to the player, it’s with exploration that this feels a little slow. There were a number of instances where my curiousity was piqued by my surroundings at the same time I instantly knew I wouldn’t yet be able to scratch that itch because of the limitations of my character.

In terms of its writing, Aveum has a rich setting that I actually enjoyed as someone who largely gets bored by epic fantasy tales. There’s a lot of backstory covered, though it’s clear the surface has barely been scratched. There’s plenty of room for sequels and side stories, and I’m sure Ascendant could easy license some tie-in novels or comics with little fuss (hint, hint). Aveum possesses a good mixture of modern sensibility with fantasy phantasy elements, and focuses on a main character who’s cocky but not unlikeable. Your fellow soldiers Zendara (Lily Cowles) and Devyn (Antonio Aakeel) are equally as endearing.

Ascension sometimes goes too far, mirroring the kind of dated speak that you’d find in Buffy, Angel, or (perhaps fittingly) Firefly. It’s far too much at times, and generally is indicative of some mixed tones. In one instance, you go through an ordeal where dozens of fellow initiates are killed, but Devyn decides your survival means it’s time to pop some champagne. Pacing also suffers at points; with the fate of the world in your hands, you’d think Jak would have a large sense of urgency at times. There are some neat uses of current-gen SSD loading inside a level, but load times upon death seem overly long and disrupt flow.

Aveum also suffers from exposition dumps that require you to follow NPCs. If you get too far ahead of them, they’ll simply stop what they’re doing and force you to head back before they start up again. While you can speed through in-engine dialogue, all cutscenes are unskippable and tend to drag out. Having to smash through the campaign in just two days — because of the late availability of review code — means I’m not as excited about going back and exploring as I would be if I got to enjoy this in smaller chunks.

On top of that, a couple of Achievements are missable, requiring you to perform a specific action at the right point in the story. Others are locked behind difficulties; I’m not looking forward to replaying the entire campaign just to mop those up.

I also experienced some issues with HDR; in some scenes, blacks were crushed and things were too difficult to see, and in others, cutscenes appeared very washed out. An update right before this embargo appears to have addressed most of the HDR issues I’ve encountered, but I’ve sadly not had a chance to confirm this properly. Nor have I been sent patch notes for and pre-release or launch day patches.

Despite those gripes, Aveum is a breath of fresh air. It’s fun, challenging and wrapped up in a world that’s worth delving into. While its marketing did little to interest me, picking it up had me hooked right from the start. I’d highly recommend you give this one a try for yourself… or at the very least, check out its first twenty-five minutes above.

Immortals of Aveum heads to Windows PC via Steam, the EA App and the Epic Games Store alongside Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and PS5 from today, 22 August.

Immortals of Aveum 22 August 2023 PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC via Steam Buy on the Microsoft Store

Immortals of Aveum was reviewed using a promotional code on Xbox Series X, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.