Maximum Games has entered into a partnership with Paramount Consumer Products to develop a competitive multiplayer fighting game set in the universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the company announced. It will launch in Early Access in 2025. A developer and platforms were not announced. Watch the announcement video below.
(Announcement starts at 12:38.)
https://piped.video/watch?v=cwwNMXmxBjA
(Alternatively at youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwwNMXmxBjA)
I can’t imagine this game actually being worth a damn. “Competitive multiplayer fighting” is not really sounding like a good fit for Avatar.
Idk, that was basically a big part of TLoK
There’s too much potential for a deep immersive explorable experience in the proper world of Avatar for me to want a pro bending game first when they haven’t succeeded in making a straight up excellent avatar game already.
That’d be like having a world as interesting as the Witcher, but you went and made Gwent first. Not to knock Gwent, but the missed potential of a deeper and more fulfilling experience would be a shame.
I think they can exist in isolation. And besides, it’s much more difficult to do open world right. I’d much rather have a fun but small fighting game that represents how dynamic bending is than a half baked open world RPG.
Yeah, this is only in a weird fantasy scenario where there’s only a chance for one or the other, and of course you’d always take a good game over a bad game, but I think the missed potential would sting, and I wouldn’t want devs making a bunch of safe competent games in a row because they’re too scared to make something more ambitious and befitting of the licensed material.
I’m just basically expressing that if I had to think of some dream games that likely may never exist an immersive role-playing Avatar game would definitely be a big one.
Yeah that’s totally fair, avatar has a great world and I’d love to explore it interactively. I loved the kyoshi books because they expand on the lore while keeping it consistent (I highly recommend them) so maybe a game could do the same.
Do you mean pro-bending? That would be more of a sports-sim, IMHO.
I think that’s splitting hairs.
It really isn’t. Smash Bros./ For Honor is very different than Mario Volleyball.
I just mean competitive multiplayer fighting could be pro-bending.
That’s still not really conveying the stuff that’s making Avatar interesting, IMHO.
Avatar was amazing for a few reasons: creative world-building, philosophical questions, spirituality, adventures, politics, martial arts and the intricate detail in the martial arts animation. None of these aspects are well suited for a “competitive multiplayer” game. No one remembers anything about the story of the first titanfall game.
It has the vibes of the XCOM First-person shooter they planned, before the series was revived with the tactics game.
Edit: The pro-bending stuff was mostly there to introduce characters and introduce some drama for the characters. I think “sports anime” stuff isn’t the thing most people like about anime. Plus: pro bending never included airbending.
That avatar fighting game from Nickelodeon was great back then. Unfortunately, they shut that down pretty quickly
What did they shut down? They did make a second one and a lot of avatar characters are already on there. This is korras introduction https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k0mcQSKvV7g
They probably meant Avatar Arena?
This could be great - but only if they manage to make environments an integral part of the combat system. It’s such an important aspect of bending in the universe and could make for interesting strategies as long as the map design is good.
But it will probably be a cash grab like the last game.
A tactics game like Desperados, or XCOM would be great. But “competitive” multiplayer just sounds way too much like jumping on the bandwagon.
I could see that too! Though there’s definitely potential in competitive multiplayer. Imagine a game with the tactical complexity of CS:GO, and with high-intensity combat mostly dependent on good understanding of the map environment.
Still not the thing what I think people like about ATLA, though. Multiplayer simply can’t convey narrative.
A game with a great narrative in the ATLA universe would be amazing, but it’s not the only thing that can work. The bending system has incredible potential for deep and complex combat. Building a great competitive multiplayer experience around that doesn’t prevent anyone from also building a great narrative game in the same universe.
If they don’t have a Pro-Bending option, it’s a missed opportunity.
Oh man Paramount is tossing that license around everywhere. I get it’s worth probably quite a bit to them but it doesn’t make me think quality is gonna be their biggest hope for these things but just money making.
I won’t hold my breath but I also will wait to see.
I hope they make it VR compatible because the Earth bending VR fan game is incredible.
