13 Ways Immortals of Aveum is reinventing magic

You know we just can't resist a brand-new genre mashup, and it looks like Immortals of Aveum is going to offer us exactly that. A magic FPS that replaces guns with eye-searing enchanted blasts? A story written by developers behind the Elder Scrolls series and Telltale Games? The dragons and kingdoms and fancy metal armor you expect from a fantasy RPG, but also a militaristic 100-year war helmed by Gina Torres as an army general? Sign us up immediately.

You'll play as Jak, a powerful, sarcastic magic user who longs to rise up the ranks to become an Immortal—the crème de la crème of Lucium's fighting forces. First, though, he'll have to prove himself to Torres' General Kirkan as someone who can be trusted and relied upon. He'll have the chance to do this by beating back the enemy Rasharn, a realm led by an evil tyrant with a thirst for conquering and destroying Lucium.

But what gets us most excited about Immortals of Aveum is its unique and novel magic system. After all, who doesn't love a story that does something new with something old? Here are just some of the ways that Immortals of Aveum is reinventing magic to create something totally new.

A first-person-shooter... with no guns?!
Sure, Immortals of Aveum is an FPS. But there aren't any S—that is, shooter—elements. In this fantasy realm, guns don't exist, but there's a war on nonetheless, so you have to fight with something. Ordinarily with that kind of setup, you'd expect swords, shields, crossbows, and maybe trebuchets if you're feeling particularly spicy. However, in Immortals of Aveum, the guns are replaced with magic. 

...But the magic actually feels like guns
Yes, sure, fantasy fighting games often have magic in them too, and it's not unusual to see mages, sorcerers, wizards, and warlocks woven into the fabric of a medieval-style game. But what makes Immortals of Aveum an FPS rather than an RPG is that the magic feels like firing a variety of cool guns. 

The fast-paced action, the spell recoil, and the sound design all add up to an experience that feels like shooting a gun, but instead of bullets—which are pretty much the only thing that can come out of a gun—your ammunition is bolts of lightning, fire, and light. The different spells you can unlock even do a good job of replicating specific weapons, too—whether that's an assault rifle, a pistol, an SMG, or a machine gun. It's very fun to experiment, especially if you're the kind of FPS player that has a favorite type of gun.

The magic is badass on its own merits
Jak's magic is more connected to him than a gun could ever be. Instead of firing a weapon, he's using his own hand, making each shot feel powerful and instant. And it looks great: each shot is a bright ball of light, a bolt of electricity, or a rope of shining, twisting energy. Each one has its own hand position, almost like its own language, animated in a dynamic and physical way that really helps you feel the power behind the spells. 

Switching between the magic colors on the fly feels very easy and fluid, too, allowing for combinations and one-two-punches as you swap from damage spells to shielding spells to status-inflicting spells like an expert juggler. It also looks really pretty when the spell colors blend and dance across the screen like a lovely kaleidoscope.

Oh, and you can get headshots. Very cool.

Elemental magic is so last year
Fire magic, ice magic, and wind magic; too boring, right? How about entropy magic, growth magic, and manipulation magic? That's how Immortals' magic system works: by splitting spells into three rough categories. 

Red magic is powerful, violent, and destructive, harnessing the forces of entropy to demolish, dismantle, and disorient enemies.

Blue magic is all about electricity and manipulation, but it's also your most defense-focused magic. It can create shields, fire bolts of lightning at enemies, and summon shards of rock. It's also used to move, grapple, and push objects and enemies.

Green magic is all about growth, health, and transition, allowing you to create illusions, alter your surroundings, trick enemies, and bind objects in place.

The visuals of each magic color help you understand their purpose and their personality, too. Green magic is displayed through a sigil that indirectly references alchemical symbols and large green cabochon gems on your arm; blue magic is lightning-fast and crackly, with neat rows of cobalt diamonds; and red magic is a sizzling spiral of electric flame and a gauntlet of raw, red crystals.

Matchmaking
Every enemy in the game has a defensive color that corresponds to one of these three magic types. If you can match your spell color to their defense color, you can shred their defenses completely and nullify their shielding spells, which makes for a tense addition to combat that requires you to pay close attention to the enemies you're fighting.

Two hands!
We can count on one hand the number of times an FPS let us use both our character's hands. Usually, a shooter wants you to focus on one gun at a time—probably because dual-wielding is vastly OP—but Immortals of Aveum allows you to combine your magics in certain ways. You can use a blue magic shield at the same time as using a green magic spray of arcane bullets, or you can use your left hand to pull up spikes of rock beneath an enemy as you shoot them with your right hand, because guess what? Jak has two hands, and he's gonna use them.

Cool Hand Jak
Jak's powers specifically emanate from a gauntlet on his right arm that harnesses and channels each type of magic. Yes, that's very cool lore, but it also just looks great—each color of magic has a different metal filigree that curls onto the screen almost like a reticule, making for a much more interesting visual than just a hand doing hand stuff.

Face tattoos that actually mean something
Fantasy games have long allowed players to add face tattoos to their characters in the customization menus, but those tattoos are rarely mentioned in the game itself, despite being a rather noticeable feature. That’s not necessarily bad—after all, most NPCs won't reference your hair color, your gigantic chin, or the fact that you're wearing more makeup than a clown either.

But in Immortals, your face tattoos are part of your identity. They are your sigil, the thing that lets you use your magic, and they are important. In fact, we'd guess that they're so important that they might even form part of the plot in some way.

Sigils are dangerous and could threaten your life
This is something we've only really seen hinted at in trailers, but it seems like Immortals' sigil tattoos are actually pretty risky to their owners. 

"Your sigil will help you focus your magic. Prevent it from killing you," Torres' General Kirkan says in one of the trailers. Seems pretty important, no? And yet, we don't have any clue on what that could mean. Is this magic a particularly wild kind that requires training and understanding to subdue? We'll hopefully find out soon.

An ancient battle and a new discovery
The realm of Aveum has been shaped by its long, eternal conflict, known as the Everwar, which over time has reduced the fighting forces from five kingdoms to just two: Lucium and Rasharn. On one side, Rasharn hopes to control and dominate through magic; on the other, Lucium wants to ensure that magic is used wisely. 

Our heroes, Jak, Kirkan, and Zendara, each have different backgrounds when it comes to this war that's been going on since long, long before they were born. Kirkan has been fighting for over forty years, and field commander Zendara has also been around for a while, whereas Jak – Kirkan's protégé – has only just discovered his own magical powers, contrasting their experience and wisdom with his youth, inexperience, and willingness to run into problems head-first. 

Of course, you'll be playing the guy who's a bit of a spontaneous hot-head, rather than the ones who think things through, because that's just way more fun.

Militaristic forces meet magical fantasy
With Immortals' main plot focused on the Everwar, it would be easy to fall into fantasy tropes of slow-marching, horse-mounted armies launching attacks on imposing castles and fortresses. Instead, we have a militaristic society that draws much more from modern and science-fiction armies, where wars are fought on battlefields, generals command teams of elite soldiers called Magnuses and Immortals, and clever tactics are always at the forefront, rather than the old-school approach of "hit them with stuff until they go away."

Magic tools
It's not just hand-magic that Jak has in his arsenal. He can also find and unlock tools, like the green magic Limpet, which he can throw at enemies to slow them down.

You can be buff and do magic?!
This one's just fun. Usually, mages and wizards are lanky lads and willowy women, with billowing capes and tunics, as well as staves and wands. It makes sense: They don't need to be particularly hefty to lob spells, do they? And yet in Immortals of Aveum, we have Zendara, a muscle-y and not-very-friendly female warrior who fights alongside Jak—when she's not giving him a hard time for being a bit of a jackass, that is. We love her. And we love buff magic users. Give Gandalf pecs!

You can pick up Immortals of Aveum on the Epic Games Store.