Hey, all! We hope you're enjoying the game since it launched last week! We wanted to thank you all for the support, feedback and bug reports. Our second patch update that goes live today across PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S brings a lot of key fixes, so please be sure to read over the release notes below.
As always, be sure to follow our social channels for the latest on Immortals of Aveum, including any future updates for the game, as we're going to continue making it better and adding more options and features that you've been requesting.

Immortals of Aveum is a single-player, first-person magic shooter powered by the groundbreaking Unreal Engine 5.1 technology and set in an original fantasy universe. Developed by a new independent AAA studio made up of award-winning industry veterans and published under the EA Originals label, Immortals of Aveum puts players in a visceral and cinematic fantasy universe that combines modern characters and a story-driven campaign with intense magic-based action, world exploration and puzzle-solving. Summon your power, stop the Everwar, and save the realms starting now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via the EA app, Steam and Epic Games Store worldwide.

This coming week, one of the most hyped AAA games of the year will launch and early previews of the game suggests it might just manage to mostly live up to the hype. However, the rest of this week is rather slow, maybe because all of the other publishers know most people will be busy playing their fancy new space game and won't be interested in what else might launch this week, although some appear to be riding on the wave of said space game. That said, there are still some minor releases this week, with at least a couple that might appeal to some of you.

Starfield / This week's AAA title / Wednesday 6 September
Starfield is the first new universe in over 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. In this next generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey to answer humanity's greatest mystery. In the year 2330, humanity has ventured beyond our solar system, settling new planets, and living as a spacefaring people. You will join Constellation - the last group of space explorers seeking rare artifacts throughout the galaxy - and navigate the vast expanse of space in Bethesda Game Studios' biggest and most ambitious game.

Today, Electronic Arts Inc. and Ascendant Studios launched Immortals of Aveum, a single-player, first-person magic shooter powered by the groundbreaking Unreal Engine 5.1 technology and set in an original fantasy universe. Developed by a new independent AAA studio made up of award-winning industry veterans and published under the EA Originals label, Immortals of Aveum puts players in a visceral and cinematic fantasy universe that combines modern characters and a story-driven campaign with intense magic-based action, world exploration and puzzle-solving. Summon your power, stop the Everwar, and save the realms starting now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via the EA app, Steam and Epic Games Store worldwide.

Immortals of Aveum tells the story of Jak (Darren Barnet), who discovers that he is a magically-imbued 'Unforeseen' and finds himself reluctantly caught in the middle of the raging Everwar. Recruited under the tutelage of the powerful General Kirkan (Gina Torres) and an elite order of battlemages called the Immortals, Jak must master all three colors of magic - blue, green, and red. With powerful magic-wielders and legions of soldiers on both sides of the Everwar, Jak and the Immortals must uncover the mysteries of Aveum's troubled past, if there's any hope for turning the tides of the Everwar and defeating Sandrakk, the powerful warlord of Rasharn and his mysterious lieutenant, simply known as The Hand.

The day is almost here. The release of Immortals of Aveum is just around the corner, and we here at Ascendant Studios are so incredibly excited for players to get to experience what we've been building all this time. As we inch closer to August 22nd, we wanted to take a moment to talk a bit more about the technology that's powering our game, and what that means for PC players in particular.

Earlier this year, we talked about some of the amazing tools we've had at our disposal as one of the first studios to release a AAA game using Unreal Engine 5.1. There's Nanite, for example, which automatically adjusts the details the player sees based on distance, letting us build huge, detailed 3D objects that look every bit as good up close as they do from virtual miles away. The additional surface detail of our objects provide significantly more places for lighting to bounce off of.

Electronic Arts Inc. is creating the most intense NHL game yet with EA SPORTS NHL 24, coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on Oct. 6, 2023. Colorado Avalanche superstar defenseman Cale Makar, whose world class on-ice skills exemplify the type of hard-checking and game-changing features that will be a part of EA SPORTS NHL 24, has been named the cover athlete for this year's game.

NHL 24 feels like hockey and brings the rush and fatigue of high-pressure games to life. The brand-new Exhaust Engine - powered by Frostbite - includes the Sustained Pressure and Goalie Fatigue systems to let players experience concentrated moments of intensity that hockey is known for. Through the Sustained Pressure System, offensive players who keep pressure on in the attack zone are rewarded and will trigger the Sustained Pressure perk, lowering their opponent's attributes for a limited time and creating more space for movement and setting up plays. With the Goalie Fatigue System, the more pucks you put on net, the more fatigue the opponent's goalie will experience. This will affect the netminder's ability to react to shots as they wear down over time and upwards of 75 new goalie animations will help bring this in-game storyline to life.

EA SPORTS FC 24 welcomes you to The World's Game—the most true-to-football experience ever with HyperMotionV, PlayStyles optimised by Opta, and a revolutionised Frostbite Engine reinventing how 19,000+ authentic players move, play and look in every match. Pre-order EA SPORTS FC 24 Ultimate Edition by 22 August to get a UEFA Champions League or UEFA Women's Champions League Ultimate Team Hero Item on 27 November.

EA SPORTS FC 24 is a new era for The World's Game: 19,000+ fully licensed players, 700+ teams, and 30+ leagues playing together in the most authentic football experience ever created on PC. Develop club legends and improve your players with the brand new Ultimate Team Evolutions, and welcome women's footballers to the pitch alongside men as you craft your dream XI. Write your own story in Manager and Player Career, and join friends on the pitch with cross-play in Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL. EA SPORTS FC 24 is the next chapter in a more innovative future of football.

Welcome to a new era for The World's Game. Feel closer to the game with three cutting-edge technologies powering unparalleled realism in every match—HyperMotionV, PlayStyles optimised by Opta, and a revolutionised Frostbite Engine. HyperMotionV captures the game as it's truly played, using volumetric data from more than 180 professional men's and women's football matches to ensure player movements in-game accurately reflect real-world action on the pitch. PlayStyles dimensionalise athletes, making them more authentic by interpreting real-world player data from Opta and other sources into signature abilities which heighten the realism and individuality of each player. The revolutionised Frostbite Engine delivers The World's Game in lifelike detail, bringing a new level of immersion to each match.

Develop your own club legends in Ultimate Team by improving your players with the brand new Ultimate Team Evolutions, and welcome women's footballers to the pitch alongside men as you craft your dream XI. Get closer to the touchline with new modern management features in Manager Career or pave your own path to glory in Player Career. Plus, connect and compete with more friends than ever through cross-play in both Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL. Pre-purchase EA SPORTS FC 24 Ultimate Edition by 22 August to get an untradeable UEFA Champions League or UEFA Women's Champions League Ultimate Team Hero Item on 27 November.

Respawn Entertainment is actively recruiting for a new game project—the Los Angeles studio is looking to fill a "Principal Game Writer" position—the job description (posted on LinkedIn) hints that a sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is already in development: "We're looking for a highly skilled Principal Game Writer who will embrace our philosophy and share their hard-earned expertise to help us create an incredible Star Wars experience for our players in a fun, third-person action-adventure setting. We're picturing an avid gamer who is passionate about storytelling through interactive narratives. Under the direction of the Lead Writer, the Principal Game Writer will be responsible for writing dialogue, scenes, story treatments, and supporting text for the game."

A portion of the Star Wars Jedi fan base, particularly players on PC, will be questioning Respawn and EA's apparent swift decision to shift their priorities to the making of a sequel to Survivor. The second entry in the series released on multiple platforms back in late April, following a delay to address technical issues—the extra time allowance did not result in a perfect launch. The game debuted with major problems across PC and current generation consoles—with apologies and fixes appearing soon after. Respawn's latest patch—number six—was made available on June 20. We can assume that several departments (Art, Design, Production etc.) are not required to provide ongoing support for the current game since there are no announced plans for DLC, but fans would appreciate a continued stream of improvements issued by QA and software engineering staffers.

As we celebrate the 57th anniversary of Black Panther's comic debut this July, we're thrilled to announce Cliffhanger Games, a new triple-A development studio based in Seattle, is working on an original, third-person, single-player Black Panther game in collaboration with Marvel Games. Our mission is to build an expansive and reactive world that empowers players to experience what it is like to take on the mantle of Wakanda's protector, the Black Panther.

Led by Kevin Stephens (ex-Monolith Productions), Cliffhanger has already brought together accomplished talent with leaders from the critically acclaimed and innovative action-adventure game, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, along with veterans of top franchises including Halo Infinite, God of War, Call of Duty and others. "We're dedicated to delivering fans a definitive and authentic Black Panther experience, giving them more agency and control over their narrative than they have ever experienced in a story-driven video game. Wakanda is a rich Super Hero sandbox, and our mission is to develop an epic world for players who love Black Panther and want to explore the world of Wakanda as much as we do," said Kevin.

In Immortals of Aveum, you play as Jak—an unlikely Magnus whose newfound potential has found him in the midst of the Everwar, human kind's endless conflict over the control of magic. Now, it's time for you to learn about everything he can do. Wield your magic with sigils and spells, build your loadout with gear and skill trees, and fight to uncover the secrets of Aveum and save the realms.

MAGIC
All magic in Aveum can be distilled into three forms: Blue force magic, Red chaos magic, and Green life magic. Each is used in its own ways and functions differently. Though most Magni are only able to control one color of magic, Triarchs are able to harness all three, though they are much rarer because of that. Jak is one such Magnus, allowing him to tap into all three types of magic.

Gary McKay, General Manager at BioWare, states: "Hello, it's been a little while since I've checked in, and as you might have heard, there's a lot happening here at BioWare. Almost 12 years after launch, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) remains a fantastic success, continuing to welcome new players to its vast galaxy and entertaining veteran players with its evolving content. It's the longest-running live service Star Wars game ever and we're enormously proud of the work the team has done in creating, expanding, and maintaining this incredible game. We're delighted to have grown such a dedicated and passionate community through all these years. The future of the game and the community continues to be very bright.

I've been working closely with Keith Kanneg, who leads the SWTOR team, to give the game and the team the best opportunity to grow and evolve. And so, while EA will remain SWTOR's publisher, development of the game will move to our partner and friends at Broadsword, a boutique studio with expertise in managing online games. Both the Broadsword studio and SWTOR team members will be joining forces and working tirelessly to support "every player, every day," ensuring that these worlds and these communities continue to thrive and grow. Their Founder and President, Rob Denton, even has direct experience with SWTOR, having helped lead the team during the development and launch of the game during his time at EA.

This announcement was shared with Electronic Arts employees by CEO Andrew Wilson: "Team, the amazing experiences we create and deliver—across platforms, geographies, and business models—captivate hundreds of millions of players and counting. As more and more people around the world choose games as their first and most important way to come together, express themselves, and share their fandom, what we do together as leaders of interactive entertainment matters more than ever.

Engaging these growing audiences represents incredible opportunities for our teams to entertain massive online communities, create blockbuster interactive storytelling, and amplify the power of community in and around our games with social and creator tools. Creativity and innovation have always been the foundation of everything we do. Now, we must further empower our creative teams so that we might realize our strategic vision. Today, we are announcing the next step of our strategy by aligning our studios into two organizations that report to me—EA Entertainment and EA SPORTS. This evolution of our company continues to empower our studio leaders with more creative ownership and financial accountability to make faster and more insightful decisions around development and go to market strategies. These steps will accelerate our business, drive growth, and deliver long-term value for our people, our players and our communities.

Electronic Arts and Ascendant Studios have delayed its upcoming first-person FPS Immortals of Aveum to August 22nd. As detailed by Ascendant Studios, the game will be pushed back to August 22nd, in order to further polish the game and optimize the performance on all platforms. In case you missed it earlier, Immortals of Aveum is a fantasy first-person magic shooter that will put the player into role of Jak, an Immortal capable of using all three colors of magic.

Originally scheduled to launch on July 20th, Immortals of Aveum raised a lot of interest as it will be the first Unreal Engine 5.1 game. The game also looks pretty good, despite high PC system requirements, which included either a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT 16 GB graphics card to run the game at 1440p at 60 FPS, and that is with medium to high game settings.

Today Electronic Arts Inc. celebrated the worldwide launch of EA SPORTS F1 23, an official game of the FIA Formula One World Championship across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, via EA App, Epic Games Store, and Steam. Featuring handling upgrades, with feedback from actual F1 teams, and Precision Drive technology for pad play, players will feel a truly authentic experience when competing against every team and driver across all circuits for the 2023 season, including the highly anticipated Las Vegas Sprint Circuit and Losail International Circuit, Qatar. Players will also create headlines with the return of 'Braking Point', featuring a cast of new and returning fan favourites alongside a fresh team, Konnersport, trying to make a name for itself against the established grid.

"F1 23 has everything players love about competing for the World Championship and propels them further into the world of Formula 1. We're connecting more players this season through F1 World, delivering fresh, timely challenges throughout the 2023 season and a new safety rating system designed to promote healthy, respectful multiplayer competition," said Lee Mather, Senior Creative Director at Codemasters. "Whether competing on wheel or pad, players will immediately feel in control thanks to implemented feedback from real F1 drivers. Our Precision Drive controller technology will revolutionise pad play and give players a greater sense of what it's like to handle some of the fastest vehicles in motorsport."

Playing Immortals of Aveum, you'd be forgiven for not realizing this is a studio's debut game. Walking onto a castle balcony, seeing bizarre science-fantasy architecture peppering the horizon, the scale of the magical battle happening beneath you, and the polish of it all shows a level of scale we don't typically associate with a first game.

That feeling is very deliberate. Founder and CEO of Ascendent Studios, Bret Robbins, has worked on some very big games in the past, and he didn't want to take a step back in his new venture: "I wanted to make a big game right from the beginning," he tells me. "I'd worked on a lot of big games - I'd worked on Call of Duty for nine years before I started Ascendent, I'd worked on Dead Space, I'd worked on Lord of the Rings, and James Bond. So I was comfortable trying to do something ambitious. I knew that games had gotten so great - so big - these days that, for us to be competitive, I needed to make something big."

F1 23 is hit by teething problems with its graphics settings. The issue first surfaced on the EA Answers community forum some 3 weeks around by people playtesting the game. F1 23 is expected to release this Friday (June 16), but pre-orders have a 3-day early access head-start, and have started playing the release version. Several players took to online forums such as Steam Community and Reddit to seek answers for what they describe as blurry game rendering at high settings. There are no known workarounds for now, other than to enable low/medium graphics presets that appear to water down motion blur and depth-of-field. Disabling those two in the graphics settings doesn't seem to help when higher presets are enabled, either. Another popular issue appears to be the color palette being "too bright," as one redditor complains.Image Courtesy /u/lebr103

This coming week we have a AAA racing title coming for those that are into games which involve driving vehicles at dangerously high speeds. For those of you that prefer something else, we have space battles, RPGs, Will Smith, horror and theme park related games, although several of those titles seem to incorporate danger and high speeds as well.

F1 23 / This week's AAA title / Friday 16 June
Be the last to brake in EA SPORTS F1 23, the official videogame of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship, featuring all the updated 2023 cars with the official F1 lineup of your favorite 20 drivers and 10 teams.

IGN has been informed by inside sources that Electronic Arts is in negotiations to "offload" ongoing development and support of BioWare's long running MMORPG "Star Wars: The Old Republic" to a third party studio. In a news article published yesterday speculation points to Broadsword Online Games being the prime candidate to takeover a franchise that has been kept alive since December 2011. Broadsword was established about a decade ago by Rob Denton - a former BioWare Vice President and co-founder of Mythic Entertainment - his team currently oversees the running of Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot. The IGN news piece notes that Denton previously worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic during its incubation period.

Electronic Arts has since caught wind of IGN's report and provided the news site with their own statement today: "Almost 12 years after launch, Star Wars: The Old Republic remains a success and continues to grow its dedicated and passionate community. We're so proud of the work the team has done, and the future of the game and the community continues to be very bright. We're evaluating how we give the game and the team the best opportunity to grow and evolve, which includes conversations with Broadsword, a boutique studio that specializes in delivering online, community-driven experiences. Our goal is to do what is best for the game and its players." The spokesperson's wording on the matter does not fully confirm that Broadsword is fully confirmed to takeover, but IGN's inside information posits that Electronic Arts will remain as the franchise publisher, while BioWare will concentrate on the development of its single-player intellectual properties (Dragon Age and Mass Effect).

Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment have released its latest Star Wars Jedi Survivor Patch 5, this is a major one as it is 3.2 GB in size, and brings quite a few performance improvements and fixes. Unfortunately, EA is still working on fixing the issues that should improve the performance on newer Core i7 and Core i9 CPUs with efficiency cores, hopefully these will come with a future update.

According to the full release notes, Patch 5 also improves content caching to reduce hitching, improves thread handling when ray tracing is turned off, and brings a fix where lowering the PC visual settings incorrectly lowers the resolution scale if the FSR is disabled. The release notes also list various performance fixes and stability improvements, as well as a couple of gameplay fixes.

Soccer Fans: put your cleats on and get ready to hit the pitch - FIFA 23 is coming to The Play List tomorrow - May 16! The most expansive EA Sports FIFA title to date, FIFA 23 hosts the next evolution of HyperMotion technology on current-gen platforms, setting the standard in realistic and immersive gameplay. In addition, and for the first time in EA Sports FIFA history, players now have the chance to play as their favorite women's club team - so get ready to nutmeg opponents and get on the scoreboard with teams from the Barclays Women's Super League, Division 1 Arkema, National Women's Soccer League, and UEFA Women's Championship League.

Take the pitch now in FIFA 23 to earn great monthly rewards, including the FIFA 23 Ultimate Team Supercharge Pack which features FUT content to help take your club to the next level. This month, members can also show their personality on the field with the Overdrive Lightning Head Tattoo, the FUT Hero Iván Córdoba Tifo Set, and more rewards.

Following on from the reveal of EA SPORTS F1 23 last week, dive into the details you might have missed and more about what to expect ahead of launch on June 16, 2023 for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. F1 23's handling and physics have had a significant upgrade on previous years, resulting in better handling, low-speed traction, and overall vehicle driveability. Veteran players will immediately notice a difference, as vehicle behaviour in particular is more authentic thanks to three key areas of reworking: acceleration, braking, and cornering.

Updates to physics calculations for the slip of the tyres and how this interacts with the inertia of the car have been made. Plus, the way each car's engine delivers torque has been refined, with more progressive steps relative to gear and throttle input. On-track surfaces such as kerbs and rumble strips will be noticeably more pronounced, thanks to improvements made to the underfloor of each car, delivering a more true-to-life experience. Adopting feedback from real F1 teams and drivers such as Anthony Davidson, players will notice a closer balance between mechanical grip from tyres and aerodynamic grip from the cars. All these changes result in F1 23 offering the most authentic F1 driving experience around.

Electronic Arts has not included Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in its projected release schedule for the ongoing financial year (2023 to 2024) - industry insiders have previously suggested that the fourth entry in the series was marked down for a later-in-2023 launch. EA's day old financial report details a number of already announced games within a rundown that ends in April 2024. The schedule includes the recently released Star Wars Jedi: Survivor game, as well as Immortal of Aveum, a Lord of the Rings mobile title, F1 23, Madden '24, Sports FC (a FIFA successor) and extra content for Apex Legend and Sims 4. A mystery pair of games are due sometime after April 2024 - a mainline EA Sports title and an unnamed racing sim.

An in-progress Skate sequel joins Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in the far off fields of mid-2024 or beyond. Bioware started to hint about a potential fourth game in late 2018 - with vague promotional material popping up during the autumn Game Awards event. The Edmonton, Canada-based development team has been quietly working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf since then, with very little preview material issued in the interim - a non-gameplay teaser trailer was shown off way back in 2020. Gary McKay, general manager at BioWare, revealed last autumn that the game was fully playable from beginning to end, and recent information suggests that the Dreadwolf team has expanded in size to include Mass Effect series staffers. A former franchise and Bioware veteran, Mark Darrah, was added on as an external (expert) consultant on the project.

The new season of Apex Legends is here! Arsenal launches today and ushers in a ton of new content and updates, including a new Legend, major map updates to World's Edge, and so much more. Here are the features I'm the most excited for, but you can expect a ton more content when you jump into Apex Legends today and throughout this season!

Before the Apex Games, a more brutal competition held sway: the Thunderdome Games! Here, sibling fighters Sok Leng and Kit Siang Phua reigned supreme. They were joined by August Brinkman, Sok Leng's eventual husband. But when August's selfish playstyle led to Kit Siang's death, August would retreat from the Games, from Sok Leng, and from their young son, Nate. August spent decades as a recluse. When Nate decides to follow his family's legacy into the arena, August returns to strike a deal to reenter the Games in his son's place.

Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment have detailed the upcoming Star Wars Jedi Survivor Patch 4 that should be coming later today for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and for PC later this week. Previous updates already brought performance improvements for non-raytraced rendering, and this time around, it should update the raytraced performance, at least on the PC.

The Patch 4 brings a handful of both PC-only and PS5-only improvements, and further fixes data handling when toggling ray tracing, improving non-raytraced performance, updates occlusion behavior for ray tracing, updates the streaming budget that should improve traversal hitching, and brings performance improvements for some VFX. There are also several gameplay fixes, various crash fixes, save state errors fixes, and more.

Today Electronic Arts Inc. and EA SPORTS announced that F1 23, the official game of the FIA Formula One World Championship, will be released on June 16 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, via EA App, Epic Games Store, and Steam. Headlined with the return of the epic story mode Braking Point, F1 23 is home to every team, driver and circuit for the 2023 season, including the highly anticipated Las Vegas Grand Prix and Lusail International Circuit, Qatar. Building on the exciting new partnership with Max Verstappen, who now boasts EA SPORTS branding on the chin of his helmet, the back-to-back World Champion is confirmed as the cover star for the digital-exclusive F1 23 Champions Edition.

"The return of Braking Point allows players to immerse themselves in a racing story, which provides a unique look at F1 alongside the authentic race features our players know and love," said Lee Mather, Senior Creative Director at Codemasters. "Our close relationship with the teams has allowed us to refine our handling model, adding greater realism to pad-play, and implementing a new color encoding system used in film and TV creates a more true-to-life experience."