While it certainly has its fair share of criticism, there’s no denying that the Avatar franchise has the potential to be one of the biggest of all time, with both of its movies already being two of the highest-grossing features ever released. Although it took a while for Avatar 2: The Way of Water to finally release, the franchise seems to finally be on an upwards trend, with a theme park land in Disney World, more movies on the way, and a whole slew of video games on the horizon, including the upcoming Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

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First announced all the way back in March 2017, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is set to be a Massive Entertainment-developed, Ubisoft-published open-world RPG set in James Cameron’s beloved Avatar universe, running on Ubisoft’s Snowdrop Engine. Despite being announced almost six years ago, fans have still only seen just one trailer for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and while it definitely looked impressive, the silence now surrounding the game is deafening, and fans are wondering what will release first, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, or Avatar 3: The Seed Bearer.

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Will Avatar 3 or Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Release First?

It was always James Cameron’s plan to make sequels to Avatar. All the way back in 2006, several years before Avatar even saw the light of day, Cameron stated that he wanted to make at least another two sequels in the universe, just as long as the first one did okay financially. Avatar ended up being the highest-grossing movie of all time, and in 2010, Cameron officially confirmed that sequels were in the works and that they’d be shot back-to-back so that they could be released fairly soon after one another.

Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go to plan. Originally scheduled to start shooting almost right away for a targeted December 2014 release, Avatar 2 would suffer a total of eight delays, including issues with writing, pre-production, and the visual effects department taking longer than had previously been estimated. Filming eventually started in 2017, and true to his vision, Cameron decided to shoot Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 back-to-back.

Avatar 3, tentatively titled The Seed Bearer, is officially slated for a December 20 2024 release date. While it may have taken 13 years for Avatar’s first sequel to release, it doesn’t look like James Cameron, or 20th Century Studios, will want to repeat that again. Much like many had predicted, Avatar 2: The Way of Water was history repeating itself, as it has done immensely well at the box office, currently sitting at the number four spot on the highest-grossing movies of all time list, and it’s extremely likely that 20th Century will want to capitalize on this success while it’s hot. Avatar 3: The Seed Bearer is fairly likely to hit its projected December 20 2024 release date as a result.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora doesn’t quite have such a clear pipeline. Despite being in development for presumably over six years now, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is still yet to show fans any actual gameplay, or even another cinematic trailer. According to the latest Ubisoft earnings report for 2022, the publisher expects Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora to hit store shelves sometime between April 2023 and March 2024. If these projections end up being true, then Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora could potentially release a good few months before Avatar 3: The Seed Bearer. But of course, the gaming industry is still being hit with some pretty major delays, and the lack of any new information doesn’t bode well for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is currently in development for Amazon Luna, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

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