WheneverAvatar: Frontiers of Pandorafinally launches, the game will have some heavy weights on its shoulders. For one thing, this will be the first entry into the series in over a decade. That means the game is going to have to work to jumpstart interest in the franchise again. There’s a very real chance that people behind this game, as well as the upcomingAvatarmovies, are hopingFrontiers of Pandoracan bridge the gap.
to bridge that gap, the upcoming Ubisoft title is going to have to thread a needle. One of the more interesting aspects of the movie was how it pushed a story of tragic colonialism and the wanton murder of native people. While that was obviously intentional and the moral of that story was very clear the evils of that particular approach, it’s still a touchy subject. IfAvatar: Frontiers of Pandorawants to have real success, it’s going to need to find a way to handle that aspect just right. That’s not a particularly easy thing to do, especially for Ubisoft.
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Frontiers of Pandora Can Reinvigorate The Avatar Franchise
If Ubisoft can find a way to thread that needle, there’s a very real chance that this game will indeed make theAvatarfranchise popular again. The situation around this title is nearly unprecedented.Frontiers of Pandoraisn’t picking up a long-dormant but very popular video game series. It’s basically trying to pick up where the lastAvatarfilm left off, which is perfect for diehard movie fans, but there really isn’t a video game footprint forAvatar. Usually in this business, the movie is supposed to reinvigorate interest in a video game, not the other way around.Frontiers of Pandorais apparently looking to set the stagefor the future James Cameron flicks.
When talking about threading this particular needle, it’s going to be important forFrontiers of Pandorato forge its own path. It’s going to be much easier to start with a clean slate than to try and continue the earlier story, either in the film, or the2009Avatarvideo game adaptation. Staying away from those particular stories gives the developers a bit more leeway.
The fact of the matter is that there isn’t a ton known aboutFrontiers of Pandoraother than so far it looks very pretty. Perhaps the focus of this game will be more about how the Na’vi live and blend in with their world. Maybe the attention will be paid less to how the native population faces off against invading forces. Though that would also seem to ignore what the point of the original game actually was.
The big question is how much Ubisoft sticks to what has seemingly been its mantra over the last few years. Even when the company releases games that appear to haveobvious political aspects likeFar Cry 5orFar Cry 6, execs tend to claim there isn’t a political push. When talking about the underlying message ofAvatar: Frontiers of Pandora, claiming there is no politics involved is going to be even harder to manage. The company should lean into the freeing aspect of most gamers knowing this story is geared towards making a statement. They just need to lean into it in the right way, but whether they can accomplish that will be seen next year.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandorais slated for release in 2022 on Amazon Luna, Google Stadia, PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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