Absurd Ventures, the company founded by longtime Rockstar stalwart Dan Houser a few years ago, has announced that a novel studio has been formed under its wing. The studio, called Absurd Marin, features several former developers from Ascendant Studios’ ill-fated Immortals of Aveum.
Yes, that’s Immortals of Aveum, which came out last year amidst a whole bunch of other compelling stuff and, for a million reasons why such unfortunate things can happen, didn’t sell the way its directors expected, who had budgeted for it quite a bit. Then there were the layoffs at Ascendant, which apparently no one in their right mind, no matter what they thought of the game itself, wanted to see.
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Now Immortals director and Ascendant co-founder Bret Robbins will lead Absurd Marin (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz), which includes “around 20 developers from the core team behind Immortals of Aveum” at the time of writing and who will be working on a “role-playing adventure game.”
The game currently sounds like it’s in early development, so no name has been announced. It’s separate from the game Absurd Ventures is working on, which is based in a universe called A Better Paradise, the same name found in the 12-part audio series Absurd was working on.
Back in May, some job listings potentially gave a better idea of what a game from main studio Absurd could look like or involve, though the company has kept that information under wraps until now.
Even though we’ll have to wait a while for more information, it’s nice to see the creators of Immortals getting a chance to make something different after Ascendant laid off “about 45%” of its employees a year ago after a former employee described their magic shooter as something no one bought.
“I haven’t seen a game die as hard in years as Immortals of Aveum,” our Connor Makar wrote in his Immortals review. “Developed by Ascendant Studios, this is a game that aims to combine good old-fashioned FPS action with flashy spellcasting. It’s an interesting proposition, to be sure, but unfortunately not one that delivers in a particularly exciting way. Immortals of Aveum is a mediocre adventure that just happens to be coming out at a time when several industry-shaking games are coming out.”
