Ubisoft's 'Avatar' Video Game Delayed So It Can Be Released Closer To James Cameron's Sequels

Audiences won't be saying "I see you" to Ubisoft's new Avatar video game until sometime in 2022.

Back in 2017, the video game giant announced that a brand new Avatar game was in the works courtesy of Massive Entertainment, the same company that made games like The Division, Far Cry 3, and South Park: The Fractured But Whole. Things have been quiet for years when it comes to status updates about the new project, but on a recent earnings call, Ubisoft revealed that the new Avatar game won't be coming out as quickly as expected.

GameInformer reports that the reason the game has been delayed is so it will align with James Cameron's long-gestating movie sequels, the first of which is now slated to hit theaters in 2022. Of course, that's when the next movie is currently scheduled to arrive – it's been pushed more times than the buttons on a remote control, and with the pandemic still in full swing, there's no reason to think it won't get delayed yet again. If this game is hitching its wagon to the film's release date, at least it should give Ubisoft and the developers more time to make the best game possible – with all of this extra time, there's no excuse for the game not to be incredible.

Hopefully the delay will also reduce the crunch for the people working on the game – the video game industry is notorious for pushing its employees to their absolute limits for big AAA titles like this, so maybe knowing ahead of time that their delivery date has been kicked back will allow them to spread the work over a longer period of time.

This new game does not have an official title yet – for now, it's simply being referred to as The Avatar Project. In 2009, a separate game called Avatar: The Game was released around the same time as the original film. That one was set two years before the events of the film, and allowed players to suit up as as a human soldier or play as a Na'vi warrior. Here's the trailer for it:

It's only natural for Ubisoft, who also released Avatar: The Game, to want to tackle another adventure set on the moon of Pandora, since it's such an expansive and immersive world for players to explore and inhabit. But will this new game live up to fan expectations after all these years away from Pandora? We'll find out in 2022 (maybe!).