Following a troublesome yr for Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios, a “core crew” of round 20 workers has now decamped to Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser’s Absurd Ventures, establishing a brand new studio that’ll be generally known as Absurd Marin.
Immortals of Aveum, a “single-player first individual magic shooter”, launched to blended evaluations final August, and it didn’t make a lot of an affect commercially. Consequently, only a month later, Ascendent Studios introduced it had made the “painfully troublesome, however needed” choice to put off 45 p.c of its employees, equating to round 40 workers.
And issues did not get significantly better from there; earlier this yr, it was reported a “giant portion” of the remaining crew had been furloughed, leaving the way forward for Ascendant unsure. However now, Houser’s Absurd Ventures has introduced it is taken not less than a few of the studio underneath its wing, with a “core crew” of round 20 former workers forming new developer Absurd Marin.
Primarily based in San Rafael, California, Absurd Marin will probably be led by Ascendant Studios’ founder and recreation director Bret Robbins, with its crew set to increase as growth of its new recreation – described as a “story pushed action-adventure title set in one other, as-yet-unannounced Absurd universe” – continues.
Since its unveiling final June, Absurd Ventures has introduced two “universes” – American Caper and A Higher Paradise – supposed to type the premise of a number of transmedia tasks, starting with a graphic novel and podcast respectively. In the meantime, a job commercial noticed in Could confirmed Absurd’s first online game mission can also be within the works. Known as an “open-world action-adventure” that is aiming to ship “best-in-class fight and third-person motion throughout a number of recreation modes”, no additional info has been revealed. It is unclear if this is identical mission now in Absurd Marin’s fingers.
As for Ascendant Studios, no official discover of its closure has been shared, so its present standing stays unsure. However having misplaced its founder and 20 workers from an already considerably diminished crew, it appears uncertain it’s going to have a lot of a future.
