The years main as much as the discharge of James Cameron’s long-gestating Avatar sequel The Method of Water had been fraught and full of debate. Does anybody care about this so-called franchise? Did 2009’s Avatar have true “cultural influence” regardless of changing into the highest-grossing film of all time by the tip of its theatrical run? Was Kate Winslet holding her breath in a motion-capture water tank lengthy sufficient to interrupt free-diving data actually “value it”? Cameron, heeding the “put up or shut up” name, silenced the skeptics — The Method of Water turned an enormous hit with constructive critic scores besides. The discourse tune instantly shifted from “actually, extra Avatar?” to “Avatar 3 nowpleasethankyou.”

Cameron’s triumph units the bar excessive for the third installment, already within the can and slated for 2024, however even greater for everybody else with chips on Avatar being greater than a quadrilogy of theatrical occasions. Everybody within the toys, comics books, collectibles, and Hawaiian shirt companies wants Cameron’s universe to increase far past the place the filmmaker will finally take it. Which brings us to December’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Ubisoft’s stab at truly turning Avatar into the following Star Wars.

At Monday’s Ubisoft Ahead showcase, followers and skeptics alike lastly noticed extra of the grandeur and motion promised by the much-delayed sport (which can now be launched on Dec. 7). The primary-person journey drops gamers right into a playable Na’vi, ahem, avatar, a brand new character who has simply woken from a 15-year cryosleep and is able to combat the terran RDA forces to save lots of Pandora. It’s not Jake Sully’s story, and because the trailers harassed, the motion’s not even happening on the map across the occasions of The Method of Water (as an alternative, it’s relocating to the “Western frontier” — please put together your All Quiet on the Western Frontiers of Pandora jokes). The trailer and gameplay footage bursts with the colour and is overrun wildlife distinctive to the Avatar films, with shooter-ish gameplay paying homage to Far Cry. It’s an actual sport.

Ubisoft frontloading the Frontiers of Pandora footage at Ahead echoes the 2017 announcement of the sport and the E3 2021 trailer reveal: this isn’t an IP cash-in. Developed by Huge Leisure along side Cameron’s personal studio, Lightstorm, the sport is meant to dwell as much as the director’s filmmaking. Cameron was even readily available at Ubisoft Ahead to set the bar: “We needed the viewers to really feel as in the event that they had been actually on Pandora,” he mentioned in opening remarks, “to dream with their eyes huge open and to discover this world with our characters.”

The director guarantees Ubisoft’s expertise has lastly allowed each studios to comprehend Cameron’s world in an immersive fashion as dimensional and fluid as, say, an Murderer’s Creed or Far Cry sport. It higher.

Star Wars didn’t change into a 46-year-old mega-franchise on the standard of movies alone, which is obvious for those who noticed Assault of the Clones or The Rise of Skywalker. A long time of Expanded Universe storytelling in each kind of media enriched each the canonical story from George Lucas’ unique trilogy and departed from it in methods the unique creator by no means would. There’s an argument that Timothy Zahn is as vital to Star Wars’ lifespan as anybody who set foot on the Empire Strikes Again set. Ahsoka is a sure technology’s No. 1 fave Star Wars character because of The Clone Wars’ Dave Filoni distilling what he knew was beloved about all of the Star Wars storytelling behind him, not simply Lucas’.

Whereas there have been bits of Avatar spinoffs dropped within the cultural feed between the 2009 film and The Method of Water, none of it was as important as Star Wars non-movie achievements. However video games appear to be the fashionable place for the collection to essentially take maintain: Whereas the unique trilogy could set the tone for “what Star Wars is,” Darkish Forces or Knights of the Outdated Republic or Rogue Squadron the latest Jedi: Survivor have all redefined it.

This has not gone properly for Avatar, up to now. Avatar: The Recreation, Ubisoft’s 2009 try at a playable Na’vi journey, took the wind out of the Nice Leonopteryx’s wings with janky controls and paint-by-numbers motion. On the time, it was sufficient to persuade me that perhaps Avatar was a one-and-done movie-theater second and never the start of one thing higher.

The Method of Water’s one-upping of the unique’s world-building and earthlings-as-alien-invaders drama was riveting, but in addition raised the query: Is it simply Cameron’s playground? If anybody else however the ocean-obsessed, tech-minded auteur tried pointing their digital digicam rig at ping-pong-ball-covered actors, what comes out will not be the “Avatar” as followers have come to adore it. Disney can spend tens of millions to erect a Tree of Souls in the midst of Animal Kingdom and inform us it’s a franchise, however sheer capitalist will doesn’t make fetch occur. Somebody wants to choose up the baton, see extra potential, and innovate inside.

Right here’s what looks as if the arduous half: Star Wars has limitless potentialities — Jedi spirit quests, smuggler goings-on, Mandalorians mandaloring, the limitless wars of Star Wars — to mine for style and storytelling. Avatar, for now, solely has the biomes of Pandora and an limitless conflict between two factions. Tough. However the creatives behind Frontiers of Pandora’s appeared to have heeded Cameron’s name to at the very least push the identified parts to their most playable extremes.

The Ubisoft Ahead gameplay footage units up the story a few younger Na’vi captured in her youth, skilled by the human RDA, then stabbed within the again through the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains, the climactic occasion of the 2009 Avatar film. This is perhaps Avatar at its most Star Wars: Pandora has its personal Order 66 now, and our hero is the surviving Jedi Na’vi warrior who should shield the moon when the RDA returns.

Avatar: The Recreation couldn’t sustain with Cameron’s imaginative ecosphere, however Frontiers of Pandora hammers residence all of the experiences that ought to have been in 2009: Gamers will fly the ikran banshees across the floating mountains, they’ll experience direhorses throughout extraterrestrial planes, they’ll meet clans of different Na’vi who all have their agendas, they usually’ll wage conflict upon the RDA in dirty smog-stained industrial complexes. Naturally, talents shall be upgraded on the (ability) Tree of Souls.

Cameron took us beneath the oceans of Pandora in The Method of Water, however Frontiers of Pandora seems like Ubisoft enjoying the classics to make sure its first main AAA outing of the brand new technology truly works, together with sticking to 2009 Avatar’s acquainted deforestation themes. Within the sport, gamers will select between Na’vi weaponry or RDA firepower to take out enemies, however blowing up a mech swimsuit stationed in the midst of an unobtanium refinery seems to be like a social-justice rush both approach. In response to a information launch revealed after the present, Frontiers of Pandora can even enable for two-player on-line co-op, so pals can take part on the conflict towards man. There additionally seems to be numerous alternatives to “pet the canine” — or, on this case, a Hammerhead Titanothere or another Pandoran fauna.

Avatar doesn’t want to be the following Star Wars. 4 big James Cameron spectacle films are sufficient to fulfill this Payakan stan. However the sheer quantity of nice Star Wars video games makes me a bit of jealous — there’s nice potential to Pandora and its nook of the Alpha Centauri system, from bouncing throughout bushes to hovering over oceans and even zipping off into house.

Cameron and his workforce appear to suppose so, too: Avatar: The Method of Water producer Jon Landau informed Polygon final yr that Lightstorm has taken nice care in ensuring the transmedia efforts round Frontiers of Pandora and different Avatar media all line up with out overlapping with or straight-up cannibalizing the movies’ saga. They need this to work, and need to see extra Avatar tales informed by individuals who spark to what Cameron is laying down. That solely occurs if Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora works. No stress.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora arrives Dec. 7 for Amazon Luna , PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X.