Fantasy shooter Immortals of Aveum failed to hit sales expectations due to the sheer number of games coming out at the same time.

That's according to the CEO of developer Ascendant Studios Bret Robbins, who told Windows Central that the firm was stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to the title's launch.

"We were not in a position where we could delay or push out of our launch window," he said.

"You set those windows quite a bit ahead of time because you're spending marketing dollars, you have commitments to a particular date."

He continued: "I've never seen a year like this. It's always hard to break through the noise when you're a new IP or a studio people haven't heard of before. Trying to create awareness for us was really, really difficult. It's always hard for a new IP and this year made it 10 times harder."

In what has become a rather predictable industry trend at the moment, Immortals of Aveum's less than stellar commercial performance has led to layoffs at Ascendant Studios.

"The layoffs really sucked. There's no two ways around that," Robbins said.

"We are not a big corporation. Our business relies on selling games, and we didn't sell enough games. And that forced me to make that decision, which, it was really unfortunate. These are people I worked closely with, people that put their heart and soul into the game. You never, ever want to have to do that."

Ascendant Studios launched Immortals of Aveum in August of this year; it came out alongside heavy hitters such as Baldur's Gate 3 and Armored Core 6.