Following the flop of the fantasy FPS Immortals of Aveum, a “core team” from developer Ascendant Studios has found a new home at Absurd Ventures, the studio launched in 2021 by Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser.
The former Ascendant team will form a new studio called Absurd Marin, headed up by Ascendant Studios founder and director Bret Robbins. An Absurd Ventures rep said the studio is currently made up of “about 20 developers from the core team behind Immortals of Aveum,” and will continue to expand as development on its new game progresses.
“Bret has put together a highly talented, passionate team,” Houser said. “We are very excited to have them join forces with us as we begin to work together on one of our original new titles.”
Absurd Ventures revealed in November 2023 that it is working on “two universes,” an “audio fiction series” called A Better Paradise, and American Caper, which is expected to debut its “first story” sometime in 2024. Absurd Marin will apparently be doing something new: The announcement says it’s working on “a separate story-driven action-adventure title set in another, as-yet-unannounced Absurd universe.”
Robbins posted a message on Twitter shortly after the announcement, saying Ascendant “will be going quiet while the team transitions into our new project.”
“Leading the Ascendant team has been one of the greatest experiences of my professional life,” Robbins wrote. “I feel incredibly lucky to work with such a passionate and hard working team. From learning UE5, to building an acclaimed combat system, to crafting a new fantasy world for Immortals of Aveum, it has been an amazing journey. Now we move forward into our next chapter, and I can’t wait to share more details with you soon.”
It’s not clear exactly what “going quiet” means in this context, although I have to assume it’s something akin to “closing.” Less than a month after the release of Immortals of Aveum, Ascendant laid off nearly half its staff, and then earlier this year, just a week after saying it was “hard at work on our next project,” most of the remainder were put on furlough. The Ascendant website is still up, but there’s been no activity on the studio’s Twitter feed since August 13—prior to which it was reasonably active, tweeting at least once a week or so.
