Video games are a tough market. Once you're in, there's no promise you won't be right out again when your company realises it hired too many team members. Even if you stick around during development, you could still be expected to crunch on 70-hour work weeks for a game that could still be a flop on arrival.

We saw the worst of it with the recent collapse of The Day Before team at Fntastic, but even less catastrophic failures have immensely detrimental effects. Now, a developer of a game that really wasn't that bad has decried the title as a mistake - and a very big mistake at that.

Immortals of Aveum dev calls it an expensive mistake

A new report from IGN has revealed the thoughts and feelings about Immortals of Aveum from one anonymous Ascendant Studios employee, and they're not particularly favourable. "At a high level, Immortals was massively overscoped for a studio’s debut project," says the dev. 

They continue, "The development cost was around $85 million, and I think EA kicked in $40 million for marketing and distribution. Sure, there was some serious talent on the development team, but trying to make a triple-A single-player shooter in today’s market was a truly awful idea."

With the market largely dominated by Call of Duty's multiplayer space, we have to agree. As well as saying it was a new IP that was also trying to "leverage" Unreal Engine 5, they said, "What ended up launching was a bloated, repetitive campaign that was far too long." 

Immortals of Aveum dev calls out Embracer Group

According to IGN, the staff member recounting all of this still works at the company. After the game has (by all accounts) failed, the anonymous developer paints a picture of how dire the situation in the gaming industry is, taking a pop at Embracer Group as a huge stakeholder in multiple areas of gaming.

"There’s plenty of layoffs due to gross mismanagement and greed (looking at you Embracer), but there’s also plenty that happen because this is a stupidly volatile market that requires mountains of capital to participate in at a professional studio level."

They conclude by suggesting that the production of Immortals simply didn't work out for its team: "For all the things Ascendant did right – paying people well, an entirely remote studio, little overtime until the end, chill environment with lots of freedom to grow, respecting QA, hiring juniors, etc. – it did not work out."

It's a scathing look at the creation of the game, and it's telling of just how much gaming companies are having to take shots in the dark these days. We're willing to bet that these feelings aren’t exclusive to Ascendant Studios or Immortals of Aveum, but it's still sad to see.