Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the most awesome shows ever made, and its parent company Paramount finally understands that with an entire studio set up to animate new adventures for Aang, Korra and whoever else. Aang will be the star of a feature film coming from Avatar Studios sometime in the future. But the ATLA world would also make for a great video game, in the right hands.
Unfortunately, the franchise is still waiting for those right hands to grasp it. There have been many Avatar video games since the cartoon’s introduction in the 2000s, and all of them have been quick cash-ins with little thought put into them. But we’re hearing of some new projects in the works — could they be the epic, amazing Aangiverse experiences we’ve been hoping for? ….Probably not.
Our ears perked up when we heard of Avatar Generations, an open-world RPG starring Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, and Zuko. The game will retell the storyline from the original three seasons of the series. Future DLC chapters will focus on Korra, Roku, Kiyoshi and others. Sound good?
Well, here’s the problem with Avatar Generations: it’s a mobile title, and will remain exclusively a mobile title. Phone games tend to…NOT be good, given the requirement of the market that the games be free to download and must make their dough through gambling and addiction tactics. Generations is also free, but you probably won’t be able to play it for long before it starts begging you for money.
Okay, so what else is there? A separate ATLA game is in development and THIS one is for consoles, so the hope is a little higher. it’s called Quest for Balance, and though developer GameMill hasn’t officially revealed it, its existence is all but a given. Its release date is rumored to be November.
The exact genre of the game is unknown, but GameMill did make Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl…..but then again, just about everything else they’ve done has been of the casual, cash-in variety (quickie games based around properties like Nerf and American Ninja Warrior). In other words, the kind of game this particular IP always gets cursed with.
Maybe someday, someone out there will create an Avatar: The Last Airbender video game worthy of its rep. But we’re still waiting.
