Surprise. In a move echoing the ‘it’ll be ready when it’s ready’ nature of the overdue Avatar 2 movie, Avatar: The Way of Water, Ubisoft’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora video game has slipped from its 2022 release to somewhere in 2023… Or maybe 2024… Ubisoft aren’t sure.
Hey, if writer/director James Cameron can take eight extra years making Avatar 2 (the movie was originally scheduled for release in 2014) then it’s fine for world-class developers Ubisoft to not even know when they’ll finish the game set in its world.
Wait. Those numbers again: Avatar – which upon release was the world’s most successful movie – wasn’t scheduled to get a sequel until a lengthy five years later… Which has then subsequently been delayed by a further EIGHT years… Which means there’s a total of 13 YEARS between the world’s most successful movie and its sequel?
Yes.
And now the GAME isn’t ready?
Yup. Seems that in the strange world of Avatar, explanations can be hard to find…
Better late than… on time?
The latest slippage information, impacting millions of Avatar fans who the studio are convinced are still out there, was quietly slipped out as part of Ubisoft’s Q1 earnings call yesterday, Thursday 21st July. Find a PDF here.
As part of the call Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said “We want to make [Avatar] a video game industry brand. It is important for us that we come with something that is perfect.”
After announcing the game in 2017, the game’s impressive trailer broke cover in 2021 – all in seemingly perfect, time-correcting parity with the by then delayed movie. Now, just as it seems that while the movie WILL (at least currently) hit the cinemas this December, the already-five-years-in-the-making game will not.
Remember Avatar?
Question is, after this amount of time, does anyone care? There’s a whole world of teens out there that weren’t even born when the first Avatar came out. But let’s not forget that director James Cameron has a reputation for doing no wrong which allows the studios to be that little bit more giving when it comes to maintaining their relationship.
Surely following up the niche, down and dirty tech-noir thriller The Terminator with a big budget sequel where cyborg killing machine Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a good guy was a terrible idea? Wrong.
And when nonsense fluff, period drama Titanic ran millions of dollars over budget (and almost killed one of its stars) it would never recoup its spend or the director’s cachet? Wrong.
So it seems that despite waiting a crazy 13 years for a sequel to the smash original and – in a move that literally nobody asked for or wanted – Cameron setting most of the action in the new film inexplicably underwater – we’ll doubtless be proven wrong by the film-making mastermind.
In fact, it appears that the ‘let’s do the whole show underwater’ schtick has been one of the main reasons for the movie’s delay as Cameron worked for years to create and perfect the rigs and tech required for underwater motion capture.
(Hey, James. Just what is it about water? I mean. We get it. Underwater. It’s like flying. But wetter. And slower?… Um…)
Anyway, with the game looking great and the movie trailer likewise I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. And doubtless eat our words. Again.
Daniel Griffiths is a veteran journalist who has worked on some of the world's biggest entertainment, home and tech media brands. He's reviewed all the greats, interviewed countless big names, and reported on thousands of releases in the fields of video games, music, movies, tech, gadgets, home improvement, self build, interiors, garden design and more. He’s the ex-Editor of PSM3, GamesMaster, Future Music and ex-Group Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Musician, Guitarist, Guitar World, Computer Music and more. He renovates property and writes fun things for great websites.
