Avatar Frontiers of Pandora
It’s been a busy year for video games, which is probably the understatement of the decade, so it’s probably fair to say that a few have slipped through the cracks, or been ignored in a year where otherwise, they may have been spotlighted. But I don’t think I’ve seen a more bizarre case than Ubisoft’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
I actually have been trying to keep an eye on this game. It’s from Ubisoft Massive, who did one of my favorite looters ever, The Division, so I was certainly eager to see what they did next even if it was surprisingly, an Avatar game.
I remember what appears to be five months ago, the first World Premiere trailer for the game that actually looked pretty gorgeous and great. I figured I would play it when it circled around some time in 2024, or whenever a game of that scope would arrive. Then, yesterday, thanks to a single tweet from a streamer listing what they may cover in this busy week, I saw Avatar. I wondered if there was some sort of beta preview starting or something.
No! The game is out on Thursday! What?
Look, I know this is my job, and you can say “how did you not know this??” and yet when I expressed my surprised online that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was coming out in a few days rather than next year some time, I had most people saying they were just as caught off guard as I am.
To see I am “extremely online” is not an overstatement. I am on the internet essentially 16 hours a day and on Twitter and YouTube for large chunks of that. I cannot remember seeing any noteworthy advertising for this game, and certainly none in recent memory that suggests an imminent release date. On my gaming-based Twitter feed the past few weeks, I have seen quite literally nothing about the game. No one talking about it, good or bad, or even acknowledging its existence.
I really don’t feel like this is just me. This game has genuinely snuck up on us, when it seems like in theory, it should have been probably Ubisoft’s flagship game for the entire year. This is Massive, one of their best studios which produced a huge new IP for them. This is Avatar, champion of the global box office not once but twice now. Why is this not a bigger deal? Why is there a vacuum where any sort of buzz or conversation about this should be?
I don’t have a review code. Not that I’m being ignored, but as I said, I didn’t even know to ask for one. I don’t know when the embargo drops, but given that we’re just a few days away from launch, it will be pretty close to its release.
I am just genuinely baffled about what happened here, and how this game has been a blank spot in my brain since that trailer half a year ago. It was revealed about two years ago, but I figured it would be so huge in scope it would take even longer to arrive. Now I really have no clue what we’re about to get here.
Is this as weird to you as it is to me, or am I going crazy?
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