Today, Ascendant Studios announced the delay of its debut game, the first-person magic shooter Immortals of Aveum. CEO Bret Robbins relayed a message from the team, expressing excitement for the public's reactions to the game but also revealing that Ascendant Studios needs a few more weeks to polish the game and optimize it for all platforms (PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X).

　　The new release date is set for Tuesday, August 22nd, nearly a month after the original Thursday, July 20th launch date. This puts Immortals of Aveum against much tougher competition, such as FromSoftware's Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (out August 25th), Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate III (out August 31st), and Bethesda's Starfield (out September 6th, though early access begins on September 1st). Granted, these are all largely different types of games, but they are long-awaited releases from globally acclaimed game developers, unlike Ascendant's Immortals of Aveum.

　　Still, the game does look solid from the gameplay shown so far, as you can see in the footage below captured by our Kai Powell at Summer Game Fest 2023.

　　Powered by Unreal Engine 5.1, it is one of the first titles to take advantage of both the Lumen global illumination system and the Nanite virtualized geometry system. On PC, the official system requirements shared by the studio are pretty high:

　　On the gameplay front, the developers have confirmed it'll be a Call of Duty-style campaign, albeit much longer. The estimated play time is over 25 hours without considering the side content, which will be delivered in a Metroidvania style where players often need to come back after unlocking certain abilities to progress in the exploration and/or puzzles.

　　You can read more about that in my interview with Executive Producer Kevin Boyle. As a reminder, Immortals of Aveum can already be pre-ordered. The pre-order bonus for all editions is the Purified Arclight, a unique blue sigil that will unleash more power for the protagonist's blue Strike spells and Shatter Fury spell.