Immortals of Aveum deserves a second chance, the new free demo has convinced me.

[Space Lynx]

Immortals of Aveum just released a free demo for this weekend. Honestly one of the neatest games I have played this year. It got a lot of hate at launch, and some of that was justified. It has had updates since then, plus AMD driver updates (I am not using preview driver, just the regular WHQL most recent).

+beautifully crafted world, legit jaw dropping in some areas
+fsr3 and frame gen work perfectly giving me 160 fps most of the time on Ultra/quality mode and look great on my 7900 xt
+the opening story is really well done (done only the demo)
+combat is surprisingly fun (especially when playing with Xbox Controller, the vibration feedback feels really solid/impactful which enhances the combat some in my eyes, usually I don't care about vibration, but in this particular game it does help as the vibration seems to match spell power (but this might just be placebo), I was not expecting the magic to actually work this well, but you use different spells for different situations and there is a lot of "aha that makes sense" to it
+reminds me of the arcane netflix story so far, which is good, it has its own elements too of course

-when the action gets really crazy the fps will dip hard and cause a hitch, it only lasts a second, but just a bit annoying. plenty of older games that handle these transitions smooth, so wish companies would focus on that more, but again its not a huge issue in real time
-combat could be a little more in-depth, but again I'm only in the demo so far so maybe it does get that way... the changing of spells for certain situations is done a good way as mentioned in the pro section, I just hope there is more to it later on.


Anyways, there it is, this game received a lot of hate early on, and I just feel like since the free demo released earlier this weekend, you can try it for yourself now and decide for yourself instead of listening to others or even me. It won't be for everyone, but I really loved the demo and will 100% be buying this when it gets a $20 or so sale. I don't pay full price for games, unless it's super special to my heart like Endwalker was. Have fun and enjoy the demo! EA sucks its true, but you know the team that made this game are just like me or you who needed a job, and honestly the passion of some of the design comes through, I can see it clearly, its a beautiful game.

 

[mama]

Fair comment. I will give it a look but like you I prefer not to pay full price for something that has had bad press. It sounds like it has some redeeming factors.

 

[Space Lynx]

in the TPU review of the FSR3 feature for the game, there were comments about FSR3 frame gen not working that well or having issues, but those seem to be gone now. for example when you have the green spell equipped, it wouldn't show the green orbs on your right arm/wrist correctly, but it looks fine now so they must have fixed that plus a lot of other stuff. it looks beautiful to me. I had a blast, and the demo is surprisingly long. I am used to demos being shorter.

also make sure you get through the combat training before you give up on the game, it honestly gets super fun towards the end of the demo, really decent magic system, magical high fantasy shit everywhere, its awesome

 

[Vayra86]

I'll definitely try this game, but it'll not be getting more than $10,- regardless. Kinda already know what's coming, and how Lichdom Battlemage still has more depth (and that's saying something).

 

[Space Lynx]

I'll definitely try this game, but it'll not be getting more than $10,- regardless. Kinda already know what's coming, and how Lichdom Battlemage still has more depth (and that's saying something).

I tried Lichdom years ago and it wasn't for me. Immortals is more of a casual audience, like when I use lash to bring an archer to me, my aiming doesn't have to be perfect for lash to work. I actually prefer that, and you probably don't, and that is ok.

Also, I am not usually a graphics whore, but Immortals really is stunning as fuck, especially some of the flyovers on major battles in the demo... its like holy fuck... really cool. lol

 

[Sithaer]

I've also finished the demo earlier today and I was pleasantly surprised. 'quite long for a demo'
Gameplay was quite fun to me in overall and I assume things might get a bit more complex later in the game tho even if it wouldn't it would be still a fun experience for once.

Graphics wise it can both look great and average-ish depending on the scene but in overall I liked how the game looks/art style too + great particle and light effects. 'cutscenes do look good/detailed'
Performance was alright, better than what I was expecting on my system to be honest and based on what the launch day reviews said.
2560x1080 res/Ultra textures+High everything else + DLSS 2 Quality is how I've played the demo and that seems to be about the right settings for me, most of the times hovering around 60+ FPS except for heavy combat when it did drop to 50+ or so but it wasn't actually bothersome to me. 'I also don't play with the FPS overlay all the time, I just kept it enabled in the demo to get a general idea of how it runs in various scenes'

FSR 3 while it does work,I'm not a fan of how it looks on my monitor and resolution but at least it works so theres that. 'I assume it could look better on a higher res monitor, on mine its a bit too grainy and sharpened'

I kinda feel like playing the full game now to be honest but that will have to wait until I can get it for at least a bit cheaper.

O ye the cutscenes do have black bars with Ultrawide resolutions but its fixable with Unreal Engine 5 Unlocker software pretty easily.

 

[QuietBob]

Immortals got a lot of flak for its extreme hardware requirements, which practically necessitate the use of upscaling techniques when everything is set to ultra. It still is one of the most demanding titles released this year. No card can maintain stable 60 fps in native 4K, regardless of detail settings. Cutscenes absolutely tank the framerate, and the game exhibits the occasional UE5 traversal stutter.

It is really beautiful in terms of graphics and presentation, though. It has a distinct coherent style, with rich environments and very detailed character models. I like the setting and the story. Gameplay-wise, it's a competent shooter which lets you develop your character battle skills, and rewards exploration.

For all the performance issues, Immortals can be tweaked to run really well on weaker hardware. This is from my secondary rig with an oc'd 3300X and 6600XT. Native 1920x1200 plus Native AA courtesy of FSR3. Everything was set to on/high (the game's equivalent of medium preset) -- except for shadows, cinematics motion blur and cinematics DoF, which were on low.

This is from the initial segment (chasing the NPC), and just before a cutscene plays. The bottom line from RTSS shows average fps, 1% and 0.1% lows:

The game still looks very good with these settings, and I'd have no problem playing it with such frame rates.

 

[Sithaer]

Gameplay-wise, it's a competent shooter which lets you develop your character battle skills, and rewards exploration.

To be fair, in one of the older vids where the devs talked about the game it was mentioned that the whole idea of this game was a 'Call of Duty but with magic' and that it does pretty well imo. 'never really meant to be much more than that'
The bit of gear/itemization and skill tree on top of that is just an extra so to say.

 

[DR4G00N]

Tried it out just to see how bad it runs on my ye olde Vega and it does well enough I guess, 25-35FPS @ 2560x1080 Ultra FSR off. Auto settings (all Low) only adds ~10FPS.
With FSR3 Quality it's closer to ~45FPS, with frame gen I get a locked "60"FPS but it looks and feels weird.


I'll try actually playing it later, who knows I might even buy a new game for once.

 

[Space Lynx]

Just to add to the most recent comments:

@QuietBob I was able to run 160 fps almost the entire time with FSR3 and Frame Gen at 1440p ultra/high, my guess is AMD should have limited and focused FSR3 and Frame Gen to 7000 series cards only, because @maxus24 also complained of stuff on the nvidia testing of it. My only issue was in two scenes, the dragon coming down in the demo scene where my fps tanked hard and fast for just a wee bit too long that it broke the immersion somewhat (would be great if they could fix this and make frame times more smooth all over), but after that it was smooth again consistently. So while that is annoying, I do think Nvidia made the right move focusing only on 4000 series for its frame gen, AMD over extended itself, and we are seeing that bad decision play out I think in these first games.

@Sithaer It does feel much more to me than just a magic version cod clone though, it really does feel like its own thing when I played it anyway. In fact a lot of the terminology comes from books I remember reading, like Hyperion by Dan Simmons and the (Shrike weapon in-game being spiky, similar to that book and called Shrike in the name in both too)

 

[Vayra86]

I tried Lichdom years ago and it wasn't for me. Immortals is more of a casual audience, like when I use lash to bring an archer to me, my aiming doesn't have to be perfect for lash to work. I actually prefer that, and you probably don't, and that is ok.

Also, I am not usually a graphics whore, but Immortals really is stunning as fuck, especially some of the flyovers on major battles in the demo... its like holy fuck... really cool. lol

Yeah, its a console-first title and it shows in everything, that's exactly the thing. Its a walkthrough with some minor challenges. Fine for what it is probably.

 

[Space Lynx]

Yeah, its a console-first title and it shows in everything, that's exactly the thing. Its a walkthrough with some minor challenges. Fine for what it is probably.

fair criticism, but not all of us want Dark Souls level difficulty. /shrug

 

[Sithaer]

@Sithaer It does feel much more to me than just a magic version cod clone though, it really does feel like its own thing when I played it anyway. In fact a lot of the terminology comes from books I remember reading, like Hyperion by Dan Simmons and the (Shrike weapon in-game being spiky, similar to that book and called Shrike in the name in both too)

What I meant is the general gameplay idea came from cod 'well duh the game director used to work on some of the cod games but he does treat Aveum more than a Cod'.
To quote him:
At the end of the day the game is a shooter,its an action game/an adrenaline ride meant to be fun.

So ppl coming to the game expecting some in depth complex systems and whatever will be disappointed most likely but I agree with you that not every game has to be like that.
Personally I play both simple fun games and sometimes more in depth games depending on my mood,etc. 'Like I re play the Serious Sam games every few years and I still love it '

I think the biggest problem with Aveum other than some performance issues is the price of the game, I would be willing to pay 30-35$ for it but even on key sites its in the ~45 $ range currently. 'idk I will wait till mid december or so and then check the prices again'

 

[Space Lynx]

What I meant is the general gameplay idea came from cod 'well duh the game director used to work on some of the cod games but he does treat Aveum more than a Cod'.
To quote him:
At the end of the day the game is a shooter,its an action game/an adrenaline ride meant to be fun.

So ppl coming to the game expecting some in depth complex systems and whatever will be disappointed most likely but I agree with you that not every game has to be like that.
Personally I play both simple fun games and sometimes more in depth games depending on my mood,etc. 'Like I re play the Serious Sam games every few years and I still love it '

I think the biggest problem with Aveum other than some performance issues is the price of the game, I would be willing to pay 30-35$ for it but even on key sites its in the ~45 $ range currently. 'idk I will wait till mid december or so and then check the prices again'

I am 100% buying it when it hits the $20 bin

 

[Sithaer]

Well I've finally finished the full game 'took me long enough huh..'.
With my not in a hurry casual style it took me a good 20+ hours with some exploring on the side and I also read all of the lore related stuff I could find.

The game is not trying to re invent the wheel or anything, basically if someone liked the story part in the CoD games or similar then this should be about the same but with all kind of magical stuff. 'at least I don't have to look for ammo'
Story wise its alright, might have some cringe moments/characters for some who are more sensitive to that but personally I'm not so eh I can't say for sure but for me it wasn't annoying at least. 'theres a bit of character development/twists and whatnot'
Performance is what is but even on my system it was enjoyable for my standards with DLSS on Quality and ~high settings. 'the game did get an update recently'
To me the game looked pretty good at most places especially the scenery and some of the cutscenes were actually cool 'almost like watching a movie'.

Theres a basic itemization system but again its pretty basic just to get the job done, 3 different Sigils 'that gauntlet thingy on your arm' and each has 3 different version which is like a different firing mode.
Rest is like + some stat bonuses here and there like extra power for certain type of magic/cooldown/reload reducions, extra dodge charage and stuff like that so pretty easy to understand.

Same with the skill tree, its kinda straightforward imo but its better than nothing. 'aint gonna find an ARPG level of depth here or anything but its not that kind of a game anyway'
Personally I've went with a mainly green magic focused build with blue on the side and a few utility points from red but honestly if someone just wants to finish the game on normal difficulty like me then anything would work.
Tho one thing to keep in mind, you cannot focus and use only 1 type of magic/weapon cause there are colored enemies that are immune or at least highly resistant to other type/color magic so you gotta use all of them in the game + theres a blue/green/red shield system where you need the same color magic to break those easier. 'thats why for me dealing with green+blue resistant enemies were the hardest cause my red magic is the weakest'

How my overall stats looked after finishing the game.

O ye the game does have some level of parkour and puzzles but imo its nothing crazy tho it might be annoying for some ppl. 'I'm somewhat used to at least this level from other games so I wasn't bothered in this case'
Basically having to use the lash tool between anchor points/levitate between platforms and such, the ones during the story playthrough are doable imo same with the color/animate puzzles that might take a minute or two to figure out.

In overall I had fun with the game and since I've picked it up on a -50% sale for 29.90 Euro I think I've got my money's worth + theres still a good number of challenge rooms/portals left for me to try if I feel like to or maybe at some later point go for the NG+ mode. 'did a few challenge portals during my playthrough but some of them were actually challenging at the time and the red portals are more like for end game level or so'

 

[Space Lynx]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, its $23 on sale now, just picked it up myself. I really enjoyed the demo so at least I am not going into this blindly, and I think that is a fair price.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I never heard of this game but tried the demo. I found it very entertaining. It's visually stunning and the gameplay is fun. The story is great so far. Thanks for bringing this to my attention @Space Lynx I'll buy this later today.

The only problem I have is this very strange mouse movement. It's hard to explain but the mouse when moving and looking around is not smooth like I'm used to. I found that it works better if I lock the game to 60 fps. I bet it would be even smoother at 30 fps but I didn't try it. Normally I would be aiming for 120. The game itself at 4K mix of Ultra and high settings, runs great. This mouse issue is a bit annoying though.

 

[Sithaer]

I never heard of this game but tried the demo. I found it very entertaining. It's visually stunning and the gameplay is fun. The story is great so far. Thanks for bringing this to my attention @Space Lynx I'll buy this later today.

The only problem I have is this very strange mouse movement. It's hard to explain but the mouse when moving and looking around is not smooth like I'm used to. I found that it works better if I lock the game to 60 fps. I bet it would be even smoother at 30 fps but I didn't try it. Normally I would be aiming for 120. The game itself at 4K mix of Ultra and high settings, runs great. This mouse issue is a bit annoying though.

I've also noticed that there is something off with the mouse/aiming/looking around like idk it feels a bit floaty? 'can't really describe it'
I've tried to enable/disable Nvidia reflex and also on/off vsync but nothing really removes that feeling so I just dealt with it and somewhat got used to it after a while.

 

[WhiteNoise]

I've also noticed that there is something off with the mouse/aiming/looking around like idk it feels a bit floaty? 'can't really describe it'
I've tried to enable/disable Nvidia reflex and also on/off vsync but nothing really removes that feeling so I just dealt with it and somewhat got used to it after a while.

We aren't the only ones. I found multiple threads online about this issue. For me, it got a little smoother by locking the frames but it's not perfect. If I figure out the cause and a fix I will pass it along.

 

[Veseleil]

I will definitely give it a try, being a mostly mage oriented player, but not until it receives major patches and a mod support perhaps? I might give it a demo test these days, but I'm sure it runs horrible even on my hardware.

 

[harm9963]

Immortals got a lot of flak for its extreme hardware requirements, which practically necessitate the use of upscaling techniques when everything is set to ultra. It still is one of the most demanding titles released this year. No card can maintain stable 60 fps in native 4K, regardless of detail settings. Cutscenes absolutely tank the framerate, and the game exhibits the occasional UE5 traversal stutter.

It is really beautiful in terms of graphics and presentation, though. It has a distinct coherent style, with rich environments and very detailed character models. I like the setting and the story. Gameplay-wise, it's a competent shooter which lets you develop your character battle skills, and rewards exploration.

For all the performance issues, Immortals can be tweaked to run really well on weaker hardware. This is from my secondary rig with an oc'd 3300X and 6600XT. Native 1920x1200 plus Native AA courtesy of FSR3. Everything was set to on/high (the game's equivalent of medium preset) -- except for shadows, cinematics motion blur and cinematics DoF, which were on low.

This is from the initial segment (chasing the NPC), and just before a cutscene plays. The bottom line from RTSS shows average fps, 1% and 0.1% lows:

View attachment 322290

The game still looks very good with these settings, and I'd have no problem playing it with such frame rates.

Its has some dips below 60 , for sure , max out at 4K raw, most of the time 60 to high 70 , game is not my cup of tea , Cyberpunk 2077 is just silly at 4K max RT , for sure needs DLSS3.5 Quality - just to avg 80 + ,otherwise a side show at 23 fps .

 

[Space Lynx]

anyone that has PC Game Pass, its arriving this month, just an fyi.

A Bunch Of Slept-On Games Are About To Hit Game Pass

Immortals of Aveum, Lords of the Fallen, Chants of Sennaar, and more arrive later this month

kotaku.com

 

[AsRock]

Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Incorporated 3rd-Party DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper
Requires 3rd-Party Account: EA Account

Yeah not happening sadly.

 

[Veseleil]

Tried it with Denuvo removed, months ago. Runs like sh*t, you can't interact with majority of the world assets, NPCs. Everything feels plastic and lifeless. FPS game that shoot "magic" from the right arm, just as you would bullets from a gun, no interesting animations whatsoever to make it seem like a proper fantasy setup. Overhyped shitshow not even worth pirating.

Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Incorporated 3rd-Party DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper
Requires 3rd-Party Account: EA Account

Yeah not happening sadly.

You won't miss out on anything, believe me.

 

[Sithaer]

Tried it with Denuvo removed, months ago. Runs like sh*t, you can't interact with majority of the world assets, NPCs. Everything feels plastic and lifeless. FPS game that shoot "magic" from the right arm, just as you would bullets from a gun, no interesting animations whatsoever to make it seem like a proper fantasy setup. Overhyped shitshow not even worth pirating.


You won't miss out on anything, believe me.

Ppl like different things, personally I've had a blast playing the game and even finished it if you read some older comments.