Ubisoft’s Avatar game won’t be released this year as originally intended.
An earnings report shared by the publisher today can confirm that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora “will now release in 2023–24.” This time frame would imply that the adventure game based on James Cameron’s blockbuster film franchise won’t be out until April 2023 at the earliest.
The portion regarding Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora can be found under the report’s “Pipeline of Games” subsection, in which Ubisoft promises a “cutting-edge” and “next-gen” experience. A number of other incoming titles, including Skull and Bones and Tom Clancy’s The Division: Resurgence, are also teased by the publisher.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will now release in 2023-24. We are committed to delivering a cutting-edge immersive experience that takes full advantage of next-gen technology, as this amazing global entertainment brand represents a major multi-year opportunity for Ubisoft.
We also decided to release in 2023-24 a smaller unannounced premium game, originally slated for 2022-23.
While this additional development time is a reflection of the current ongoing constraints on productions across the industry, we are hard at work to design the most efficient working conditions to ensure both flexibility for our teams as well as strong productivity while delivering the best experiences to players.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot elaborated further on why Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora had been delayed during an earnings Q&A, explaining that “working conditions are more difficult in the industry at the moment, where people can’t come to the office as often.”
“That’s had an impact, and it was the biggest impact,” the executive added.
Ubisoft shared its first trailer for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora in June last year, providing an early glimpse of the first-person, action-adventure game developed by The Division’s Massive Entertainment.
In this new, standalone, extension of the Avatar universe, you play as a Na’vi and embark on a journey across the Western Frontier, a never-before-seen part of Pandora. Explore a living and reactive world inhabited by unique creatures and new characters and push back the formidable RDA forces that threaten it. The game will be available exclusively on the new generation of consoles – PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, as well as Stadia, Amazon Luna, and Windows PC.
James Cameron’s Avatar sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, is scheduled to be released on December 16, 2022.