Long-starving Avatar fans will finally get their cinematic sequel to James Cameron’s blockbuster franchise later this year with the release of Avatar: The Way of Water, but fans aching to return to Pandora in big-budget video game form will have to wait a bit longer. Publisher Ubisoft announced Thursday that its game based on the Avatar franchise, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, has been delayed.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was previously announced to arrive by the end of 2022, as noted at the game’s reveal at E3 2021. Ubisoft later clarified that it planned to release the game as part of its current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2023. But as part of its quarterly earnings update, Ubisoft now says it plans to release Frontiers of Pandora later, sometime “in 2023-24.”
Ubisoft first announced plans to make Avatar video games way back in February 2017. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is being developed by Massive Entertainment, the studio behind Tom Clancy’s The Division, and will use that series’ Snowdrop Engine for its Avatar game.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a first-person action-adventure game set on Pandora’s Western Frontier, described as a never-before-seen part of the alien world. Players will explore “a living and reactive world inhabited by unique creatures and new characters, and push back the formidable RDA forces that threaten it,” according to the game’s official description. The game is headed to Google Stadia, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.
Ubisoft previously released James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game, a third-person shooter for PlayStation 3, Windows PC, and Xbox 360, in 2009.
Avatar: The Way of Water, the first of four planned Avatar film sequels, hits movie theaters on Dec. 16.
