Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is one of the most anticipated upcoming Ubisoft games on the near horizon. Announced back in 2021, this new open world action-adventure game is in development at Massive Entertainment – the studio behind The Division franchise. While we should have been playing this new Avatar game in time for the launch of Avatar: The Way of the Water last year, Ubi decided to push production back for additional polish.
We're now expecting to see this new game for 2023 at the Ubisoft Forward showcase on June 12, where we'll hopefully see a gameplay and release date reveal. Ubisoft says that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will show the world of the Na'vi as we've never seen it before, set in a new area of the planet which the movies are yet to explore.
While we wait for more info, keep reading to discover everything we know about Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora so far.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora release date
Ubisoft is yet to confirm an Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora release date. While many had expected the new Avatar game to launch alongside Avatar: Way of the Water on December 16, 2022, this ended up not being possible. All we know for sure right now is that it'll launch within Ubi's next fiscal year – which falls between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora platforms
The Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora platforms are confirmed as PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC. While Ubisoft is still working to bring its upcoming games like Assassin's Creed Mirage and Skull and Bones to last generation consoles, there will be no Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora PS4 or Xbox One release. This is largely down to Massive Entertainment threading development through the latest iteration of the new Snowdrop engine, and the studio requiring the power of new generation hardware to support a sprawling open world rendition of Pandora.
First Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora trailer
While Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was first teased way back in 2017, Ubisoft waited until E3 2021 to properly reveal the game. Frontiers of Pandora was given a two minute, in-engine teaser trailer – which you can watch above – to get a sense of the open world Massive Entertainment is building.
Exclusive Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora interview
In an exclusive interview with GamesRadar+, creative director Magnus Jansén dove into why Massive Entertainment is making this new Avatar game first-person and how the studio's impressive Snowdrop engine helped convince Disney and Lightstorm Entertainment of the collaboration opportunity. You can read more of that in our Big in 2023: Avatar Frontiers of Pandora preview.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora story
The Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora story will be a standalone instalment in a whole new area of Pandora, taking place right after the events of Avatar: The Way of Water, so don't expect to bump into any characters from either of the Avatar films. The studio's goal is to "bring to life the alluring world of Pandora with all of its beauty and danger in an immersive, open world experience," and is still set within the broader Avatar universe.
Since Frontiers of Pandora takes place during the Way of Water time-skip, expect the game to color in some gaps for us and, therefore, count toward the broader Avatar canon. The movie's producer, Jon Landau, said as much in an interview with Polygon: "Frontiers of Pandora takes place in the western frontier of Pandora... That's not somewhere we've gone before. It takes place in the timeframe after Avatar: The Way of Water opens, but before the one-year time cut in the movie."
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora gameplay
Massive Entertainment is yet to show Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora gameplay to the public. However, comments from publisher Ubisoft, and an impressive in-engine teaser trailer, have given us a sense of what to expect. For starters, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will be a first-person action-adventure, one which will cast you in the role of a Na'vi.
A recent set of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora screenshots might have been leaked, and if these turn out to be legitimate, Frontiers could be veering into more heavy FPS territory. One of the two leaked images shows a Na'Vi riding on a Banshee mount through a dense green forest, but this appears to be a promo image rather than a glimpse of actual gameplay.
Developer Massive Entertainment has only teased the state of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora combat, although it does look like we'll be doing everything from stalking through dense vegetation with a bow in hand to fighting back RDA forces from the sky on the back of our very own Banshee.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora open world setting
In terms of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora gameplay, we know the game will be set in a part of Pandora that we've never seen before: the Western Frontier. This will be an open world which – according to Ubisoft technical art director Sebastian Lindoff – we'll be free to explore "from deep, dense jungles on the ground, to the grand vistas high up in the sky." Developer Massive Entertainment does have some experience in this area, having developed the hugely successful The Division and The Division 2.
Given its setting in never-before-seen parts of the cinematic universe, even those familiar with the two films will have plenty to explore and discover. Ubisoft says that Frontiers of Pandora will allow us to "explore a living and reactive world inhabited by unique creatures and new characters" where we'll be fighting to "push back the formidable RDA forces that threaten it." While there are no further details on the story, it's clear that Massive is pushing to make Pandora feel like a lived-in space. Alice Rendell, lead narrative realization designer, says that one way you'll see this come through is in the NPCs.
"The different activities that NPCs can perform in the world, and the different animations they have, can make the world feel really alive. For Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, we wanted to take this one step further and created a system where our NPCs understand the state of the world – for example: weather, player progression, or time of time.
Will Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora be multiplayer?
Ubisoft is yet to confirm whether Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will be a multiplayer or single-player game. Ever since its announcement in 2017, and subsequent reveal in 2021, there has been speculation that the new Avatar game would be a co-op adventure – fuelled largely because of Massive Entertainment's development history. The studio is best known for creating Tom Clancy's The Division (2016) and The Division 2 (2019), two of the best online games of the last generation. We're hoping Ubisoft clears up the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora multiplayer question soon – so keep your eye on the E3 2023 schedule.
Is James Cameron involved with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora?
Avatar creator James Cameron currently has his hands full with Avatar: Way of the Water and a slew of planned sequels, but that doesn't mean the director isn't keeping one eye on Frontiers of Pandora. Speaking with IGN, Cameron explained his involvement with the new Avatar game: "I don't tell them what to do – they know their world, their business, their market. We just keep a close eye that they don't do anything that's not canonical, in terms of Na'vi culture and what the RDA is doing on Pandora."
