Wondering what the studio has been up to these last few months? Well, not only are we hard at work on our next project (shhhhh!....), we’re also continuing to work on improving Immortals of Aveum™ so that more players can enjoy it to the fullest. That means two big updates are coming your way: HDR (high dynamic range) support on all platforms, and thanks to our incredibly talented partners at Enduring Games[enduring.games], IOA will be the first game to rollout AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3) with frame generation on consoles!

Huge thanks to YOU, our incredible community, for all the support, suggestions, bug reports, and for taking the time to play and chat about Immortals. Your feedback makes it possible for us to share some big news about the next Immortals of Aveum updates!

Before we get to that, there’s even more we’ve been up to...

Magically made us blush

We’re honored to receive the NAVGTR award for Best Art Direction in a fantasy game! We’re so proud of our team for all of the work, talent, and dedication they put into IOA to be recognized with seven NAVGTR nominations, as well as a nomination for “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Real-Time Project” by the Visual Effects Society. And of course, a big thank you to all the NAVGTR and VES members and voters for considering IOA as a contender among such an incredible lineup of games in 2023.

Playing is Believing

As we approach the one year anniversary of Immortals of Aveum’s big reveal in April 2023, we wanted to take a moment to express our appreciation for the players, press, creators, fellow developers and colleagues who’ve joined us on this journey so far. It’s no small feat to build a new studio and original IP game, using a new game engine, and with significantly less budget than the average AAA game, all in five years. While you probably already know that our launch didn’t have the initial commercial impact we hoped for, y’all have shown us tremendous support through your comments and messages, by referring friends, and swapping expert advice.

And it shows. Immortals of Aveum’s purchase rate for people who played the demo is 2-3x higher than EA’s average on their other game demos. We’re grateful for an average 82% user score across digital storefronts. Players getting hands-on with Immortals and sharing their experiences validates our belief that playing is believing.

It hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, game development never is. Yet we’re optimistic about the future, and hopeful that as folks play through their backlog of games they discover Immortals of Aveum. No one says it better than our CEO and founder, Bret Robbins, when he confides in GamesIndustry.Biz about Immortals and the future of the studio[www.gamesindustry.biz].

Which brings us to the latest game updates…

HDR is Coming to Immortals of Aveum on PC Soon

Releasing TODAY, Patch 1.0.6.3 brings HDR (high dynamic range) to Immortals of Aveum on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. HDR support for PC is on the way soon in a future update. Aveum’s stunning environments, unfettered magic, and battle-hardened denizens take on new life in HDR with deeper shadows, brighter highlights, and more vibrant colors. We’re pleased to announce that this long-awaited, highly requested update is available for all Immortals players today. Read the patch notes here.

Bringing HDR to IOA was something our team felt very passionate about. We wanted to provide players with gorgeous HDR visuals, and that meant taking the time to do it right. Once HDR became available in Unreal Engine 5, our team set to work to get Immortals of Aveum updated… then we hit a snag in our Caldera level. Although Aveum is brimming with magic, turning on HDR didn’t magically make everything look the way we wanted it to. Caldera needed some extra love in the form of new lava shaders, new VFX, and other touch ups to make it look great in both SDR and HDR. Additionally, we had to balance IOA improvements while also working on other unannounced projects, which was tricky.

Game development is always full of surprises. Nevertheless, the result is a richer, more visually captivating journey through Aveum that we hope new and old battlemages alike will enjoy.

AMD FSR 3 Updates Will Bring Improved Visuals & Performance to PC

Thanks to the hard work of our wonderful partners at Enduring Games, patch 1.0.6.4 will soon bring AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3), including its frame generation capability, to Immortals of Aveum on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, as well as FSR 3 updates for PC! We’re pumped that Immortals of Aveum will be the first game to implement FSR 3 with frame gen on consoles. Soon, console and PC players alike can take advantage of FSR 3's temporal upscaling, advanced frame generation, and built-in latency reduction technology for improved framerates and game performance.

"I work with wizards," said Adam Creighton, Studio Head for Enduring Games. "At EG, we are about doing hard things that are not yet generally available for gamers or game developers. Since we work with AMD and we work with Ascendant, Enduring Games was in a unique place to enhance our FSR 3 work for PC, and bring the tech to consoles for the first time, all for fans of Immortals of Aveum."

Again, thanks to our friends at Enduring, this FSR 3 update will also extend support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) monitors and TVs on both PC and console, which will improve frame pacing and reduce occurrences of judder or screen tears. Additionally, FSR 3 on PC will be updated to a newer, better version that will further improve visual quality and performance of its temporal upscaling.

Patch 1.0.6.4 is in the works and set to be released in the coming weeks. We’ll have more information on the release timing as we get closer, so stay tuned!

*Requires Immortals of Aveum (sold separately) and all game updates.

Stay In Touch
If you want to be FIRST to know about updates like this, plus get insights into game lore, chat with fellow Magni, and even meet some of the dev team, then head over to the official Immortals of Aveum Discord server. [discord.com]

Need something to do while you wait for the patch to download? Check out our gameplay Deep Dives and behind-the-scenes studio footage on the Ascendant Studios YouTube channel. You can also subscribe to the studio newsletter, The Standup[ascendantstudios.beehiiv.com], and follow us on Twitter, TikTok[www.tiktok.com], Instagram[www.instagram.com], and LinkedIn[www.linkedin.com] to keep up with Immortals of Aveum and Ascendant’s future projects. In fact, we’ve already begun work on our next project in Unreal Engine 5.2 and hope to release on UE 5.3 or beyond! So stay tuned, keep charging that Immolate spell, and we’ll see you on the Path…