Familiarity and similarity may sound the same, but if there's ever a case where the former can pay off better than the latter, a game like Immortals of Aveum may prove that recollections of memories past and recent alike may not always be a bad thing. Of all the themes, ideas and cornerstones of game design developer Ascendant Studios' debut touches on -- as seen during a recent hands-off showing -- and at times seemed ill-fated to collapse over, like an all-too-colossal house of cards, the most poignant ones are the small details. Those belonging to more favorable and in some cases recent titles. The way your player-character's magic-casting tool, dubbed the Sigil, behaves like the arm-cannon Samus Aran wields in Metroid Prime -- right down to the way both it and your very hand gesture changes shape depending on the weapon type. Further still, combat encounters that lay out the tools, the arena and simply ask you to determine how best to make use of the mechanics and the geometry.

This of course isn't exclusive to 3D Metroid's stylings. In fact one can say that Immortals owes its familiar traits of linear level progression, closed-off combat encounters and hard-hitting, fast-moving, first-person gameplay to a multitude of names from Western gaming's past. Not just a remarking on the experience the developer's head-count has from past successes -- the likes of Call of Duty, Halo, Bioshock, Borderlands and even Dead Space get a mention -- but so too where Immortals lands itself in so far as its pitch. Both in terms of gameplay, but so too its proposed narrative and all-round aesthetic. Settling on that murky "fantasy but not that kind of fantasy" brand of the genre happy to indulge in swords, dragons and villainous leaders with not-too-pleasant motivations, but doesn't entirely rule itself out on the reliance of technology from time to time. As non-descript and ill-defined that balance seems from an early glance.

Immortals of Aveum Preview Screenshot

Yet for all its splendor of inspirations, it's in a way a double-edged sword that the most recognizable of elements standing out with Immortals is in how it's reminiscent more of a shooter you'd find under Bethesda's wing. A Wolfenstein, a RAGE, maybe even...a DOOM? Admittedly, I hesitate to put that latter name-drop in, because DOOM with magic (exciting that may sound on paper) Immortals is not. Not for a lack of trying and not because the frantic, frenetic flurry of magic-based attacks, particle effects and occasional chaos, doesn't end up enticing enough to work out from a sandbox-like mindset. One thing Immortals' vertical slice succeeds on is in that eagerness to try it all out. To be let loose with a system that doesn't limit by ammo or movement or other such personal attributes. Weaken a foe with one's SMG-like magic to then lasso them in close and finish off with a shotgun-like, close-range blast? I'll take that no question.

The one thing that may work against it is the fact Immortals conjures memories of so many other games in so little a time. Can the game find the time or indeed the willingness to carve its own identity in amongst this admirable cobbling-together of shooters' and fantasy titles' recent past? Swapping guns for magic -- as much as one still needs to "reload" from time to time -- is a good start, but other areas, namely the plot, are a little less clear. Not least because for all the talk from the developer about trying to move away from genre tropes, a story cutscene that was seeming, at a glimpse, to point towards "bad guy wants to use ancient technology/device/McGuffin" implications -- for a game more than happy to lay out its premise and its starting point in as wide and a canvas that a new, fictional, fantastical world may suggest, the reality is that the end product seems rather more narrower. Narrower in the sense it takes the shape of a more linear mission-based progression, with only the briefest of opportune spots to replay and revisit previous areas in the pursuit of optional collectibles. The plot, as a result, playing second-fiddle despite the prospect and promise of some grand-scale war without end.

Immortals of Aveum Preview Screenshot 2

Yet this is no open world you explore nor discover at your own pace. It's a choreographed sequence of set-pieces and moments to let go, let loose and let the screen fill with magic bursts and explosions aplenty. Moments where the narrative, as noted, is discarded in favor of one more [enticing] power trip after another. Even if those very effects hinder the visibility of what it is you're meant to be attacking. At one point in the demonstration, such was the intensity of the effects that I'd lost track of where or indeed what the focused target was. But occasional self-indulgence can be excused if the mechanics wind up satisfying to use and experiment with. Even if said experimentation seems limited to working out which of the three main magic types are the right fit, exploiting an enemy's color-coded weaknesses by extension and even solving puzzles in-between to loosen things up along the way. It's no bad thing that Immortals' isn't going for sheer scale -- it's rather admirable that a new studio still finds merit in a single-player game with a specifically-set number of chapters/levels/segments to tackle in order. A game that, by the studio's own admission, will take around 25 hours on average to beat.

But to succeed, you need to have more than just a fresh coat of paint and flashy effects to accompany. Not to say Immortals of Aveum is all style and no substance at this point in time, but there still remains a few unanswered questions as to where exactly the game is landing when it comes to utilizing past ideas for present gains. Hot off the heels of a game like Ghostwire: Tokyo, Ascendant Studio's greater focus on both pace and power in one's abilities reminds me of what I wished Tango's effort last year could've leaned more into. And sure the tone is entirely different, but it's promising to see a shooter without guns can still illicit a satisfaction of simply grappling with the tools at one's disposal. Perhaps that particular and specific dose of kinetic, fast-paced familiarity will be enough for Immortals of Aveum. The question is whether or not the studio can translate that into a gameplay experience attractive enough -- with or without the world it's attached to.