Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

 Not THAT Avatar

So we endured a Ubisoft conference where the big French boys did their darndest to make out that they weren't working on any of those projects that we'd be waiting on for the better part of the last quarter century. You know what I'm talking about; that 'Beyond Good and Evil 2' game which has been so quiet since it was last seen, and promised so much back when it was, that it sort of feels like Ubisoft were scammed and are too embarrassed to announce it. (Just give me that swearing monkey, he's all I want!)  Then there's some people looking forward to that 'Skull and Bones' ship combat game which means absolutely nothing to me, but I have to agree how it's excessively weird that we haven't seen hide nor hair of it for several years. I mean, the framework for that game was already created by 'Assassin's Creed Black Flag', do they really need to build it all from the ground up? Heck, in the time it's taken that game to be made, Assassin's Creed has had the chance to go back to the ship combat and reiterate it twice. (Are we getting our ship game or not?) Then there's the big one, our out-of-action stealth hero, now the last of his kind, Sam Fisher, has been relegated to supporting roles in the Tom Clancy game series for too long. He needs to return in a big way, bring us Splinter Cell. So which one of these big three question marks did Ubisoft resolve during the show?

Well after an excruciating E3 which only now, after two undeniably worse shows, scores as middling in the whole 2021 E3 pantheon, (I thought this was the worst it could get, then I saw Gearbox E3) we all breathed a collective sigh of relief once Yves Guillemot stumbled in front of a zoom call. Then we all remembered all the troubles going on within Ubisoft that Yves had remained silent for (even refusing outright to accept responsibility for) and that relief became bitter sweet. But at the very least this would prove that something special was waiting on the otherend of all this torment because no game studio in their right mind would be so utterly clueless as to think that ending on a glory shot of their CEO is the perfect fit for an E3 conference. Then again, Gearbox sacrificed half their runtime to watching Randy Pitchford live out his childhood fantasies; so what do I know?

Once he was done crooning, Yves chimed those words we all wanted to hear "There's one more thing" or something to that nature which literally every gaming press conference needs to say in order to not get ridiculed for their efforts. End on a big note, always. The 'showstopper' as we like to call it. Ubisoft were unfortunate enough, this year, to literally be the first conference following up the Summer Games Fest which ended with freakin' Elden Ring, so right away we knew they were up against it. But it was fine, because they had so many promising upcoming titles in the works that the finale simply couldn't be a misfire, now could it? And that certainly didn't seem the case when we opened up on a lush jungle paradise and theories started flying. In my mind, I instantly saw something bright and alien and thought "Oh my god, we're seeing an entirely new planet for Beyond Good and Evil 2! The game's real!", others were much more hopeful and thought "The jungle? Are those 'Chaos Theory' throwbacks I hear? Sam Fisher here we come!" And then we saw the blue people.

I think that accurately picking out the worst part of this feeling that descended on all of us at that moment is tricky, because it's this amalgamous mix of disappointment and utter bewilderment. Because you see, it's not as though we didn't recognise these overgrown Smurfs, I don't think there's a single developed civilisation on the planet who doesn't recognise these long necked azure creeps. They're Na'vi. Freaking Na'vi. The people who have hair sex in the Avatar film. The Avatar Film from 12 years ago. Those Na'vi. They're getting a game. Avatar is getting a game. Not 'The Legend of Aang'- the bad Avatar. Why? Why are we still here? Ubisoft and their practical jokes might just be the end of me, because this has to be a practical joke and what the what-

Sorry, I sort of lost it there. Because that was about the level of coherency my mind was running at when we first saw these guys bumble onto our E3 stage. What followed, oh so predictably, was a CGI romp through the world of Pandora where a bunch of 'bad guy' humans try to shoot some 'good guy' Na'vi on their hunt for Unobtanium. Oh, did you remember how the special ore which serves as the Mcguffin for the Avatar film was called 'Unobtanium'? Just in case all the pretty visuals and flashy effects made you forget that despite it's gilded presentation this series-to-be has been about as deep as puddle. Living up to the heart of that movie just perfectly, this final reveal featured no gameplay, no hints at gameplay, or anything that could feasibly construed as 'substance' during it's runtime. Just some CGI... It looked pretty at least.

So can we ask why are we getting an Avatar game? I feel like that's a fair ask. Don't get me wrong, I understand that through bullish pigheadness and a studio that trusts him far too much, James Cameron has succeeded in shoving his fantasy retelling of Dances with Wolves down the throats of everyone. For those who aren't keeping track, it currently sits atop the throne of the highest grossing movie of all time, mostly through warrant of it getting extended cinema runs years after it whelmed the world back in 2009. "Wait, I thought that record was nicked by Avengers Endgame" you may think, and rightly so. Avengers Endgame neatly and impressively managed to swoop in for that record with a fairly normal cinema run time in comparison. (Although it was still extended far past your average movie because, ya know; Marvel) But then James, a sore loser apparently, went and pursed yet another Cinema run in China a decade after initial release in order to steal back his crown. The man won't let bygones be bygones, and now he's teaming with Yves Guillemot to perpetuate his blue hair mating-things in the games industry too.

To be clear, yes I know the real reason Avatar released in China was to be in preparation for these three new movies in the 'Avatar universe' that have been on the way since year dot, and I suspect that's the reason we're seeing this here game. But divorcing that behind-the-scenes garbage for the facts at hand, at face value this really does look like Ubisoft jumping on the in-thing literally over a decade after the boom and looking hopelessly out of touch for doing so. Whatsmore, this trailer proved they had nothing to show for the game, so they easily could have held off until one of those movies were formally announced in order to not come across as actual madmen. At the very least we can maybe extrapolate this game announcement to mean that one of the trio of Avatar films is on the verge of getting a concrete release date, but this entirely empty trailer could very well mean this game is in the early Alpha stages, (Ubisoft are the arbiters of early announcements afterall) so I'm not sure what to take away from- wait, this game's coming out next year? 

Huh? So I guess the tentative release date for Avatar 2, which was locked in so many years ago, was 2022 which is now right around the corner. Is James Cameron really expecting to hit that? Well he's commissioned a video game for the same year so I guess the answer is yes; but seeing as how we don't have a trailer or even a title for this Avatar film (don't say it's 'Avatar two') I have to wonder if this is just a delay waiting to happen. And just how long have Ubisoft been working on this game to the rate where they cannot show off Gameplay but expect to hit next year for release. Don't tell me they actually consciously chose not to show off gameplay for a new game in the modern year. That would be insanely dumb for Ubisoft to do as it shows the height of mistrust for your team's abilities. I don't know, I feel like something's going on behind the scenes here that I can't put my finger on. Guess next year it'll all come out, for better or for worse

What we can say definitively is thus; an Avatar game is being made and I for one cannot say I personally know anyone who asked for this. And yet, going to the Ubisoft announcement video and reading the comments and checking the likes, it would seem that the audience it there. Somewhere there have been these hoards of Avatar fans that have languished unloved for an entire decade, now getting the recognition that they crave. And for those beleaguered I'm happy, you're getting the game you've waited for and I hope it's everything you dreamt of. For Ubisoft, however, I feel a plethora of emotions, mostly negative, but chiefly concern. This is yet another big game project they're waving under their already overstuffed wing brimming with large projects that are largely MIA, so what hope does this one have? Maybe with the dragon that is James Cameron looming over them, Ubisoft might actually be able to finish this game and get it out. Maybe...