“Core team” of Immortals of Aveum developers joins Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser’s Absurd Ventures

Following a difficult year for Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios, a “core team” of around 20 employees has now decamped to Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser’s Absurd Ventures, establishing a new studio that’ll be known as Absurd Marin.

Immortals of Aveum, a “single-player first person magic shooter”, launched to mixed reviews last August, and it failed to make much of an impact commercially. As a result, just a month later, Ascendent Studios announced it had made the “painfully difficult, but necessary” decision to lay off 45 percent of its staff, equating to around 40 employees.

And things didn’t get much better from there; Earlier this year, it was reported a “large portion” of the remaining team had been furloughed, leaving the future of Ascendant in doubt. But now, Houser’s Absurd Ventures has announced it’s taken at least some of the studio under its wing, with a “core team” of around 20 former employees forming new developer Absurd Marin.

Based in San Rafael, California, Absurd Marin will be led by Ascendant Studios’ founder and game director Bret Robbins, with his team set to expand as development of its new game – described as a “story driven action-adventure title set in another, as-yet-unannounced Absurd universe” – continues.

Since its unveiling last June, Absurd Ventures has announced two “universes” – American Caper and A Better Paradise – that are intended to form the basis of multiple transmedia projects for the studio, beginning with a graphic novel and podcast respectively. Meanwhile, a job advertisement spotted in May confirmed the studio’s first video game project is also in the works. Referred to as an “open-world action-adventure” that’s aiming to deliver “best-in-class combat and third-person action across multiple game modes”, it’s unclear if this is the same project now in Absurd Marin’s hands.

As for Ascendant Studios, no official notice of its closure has been shared, so it’s unclear what its current status is. But having lost its founder and 20 employees from an already substantially diminished team, it seems unlikely it’ll have much of a future.