Today, we finally got a fresh glimpse at Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Ubisoft’s new Avatar game that’s been in development for the last four years. Originally going by “The Avatar Project,” Frontiers of Pandora was teased during today’s Ubisoft E3 presentation. The video revealed more of Ubisoft’s vision for its second attempt at adapting James Cameron’s 2009 box-office shattering movie about blue cat-people.
Powered by Ubisoft’s Snowdrop engine, Frontiers of Pandora is a first-person action adventure game that takes place amidst the vibrantly beautiful flora and fauna of Pandora. While the trailer didn’t show off any gameplay, Ubisoft did reveal what kind of story to expect from James Cameron’s technically impressive but narratively thin blockbuster.
“In this new, standalone story, play as a Na’vi and embark on a journey across the Western Frontier, a never-before-seen part of Pandora,” Ubisoft said in a press release. “Explore a living and reactive world inhabited by unique creatures and new characters, and push back the formidable RDA forces that threaten it.”
First announced in 2017, Frontiers of Pandora combines the talents of Ubisoft’s Swedish studio Massive Entertainment and Lightstorm Entertainment, which is James Cameron’s movie production company that made True Lies, Terminator 2, and, more recently, Battle Angel Alita.
But this isn’t the first Avatar (blue alien, not Airbender) video game. Back in 2010, Ubisoft released James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game on just about every platform at the time including Java ME and the now-defunct mobile operating system, Symbian^3. The game consisted of typical third-person combat and featured a pivotal moment mid-game in which the player could choose whether to continue the game exclusively as a Na’vi or a human marine. The PSP and Wii ports of the game did away with that choice and featured a completely new story that followed a Na’vi on his quest for revenge.
Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo reviewed the first Avatar title writing, “The game never managed charm, and it came second-place in beauty. I stopped playing it after a few hours.”
Despite its initially low sales and lukewarm critical reception, Avatar: The Game was a commercial success selling 2.7 million copies.
Read More: The Avatar Video Game Disappointment
Movie tie-in games have never quite captured the successes of their silver screen siblings. But with new collaborations between movie and video game producers on the horizon, maybe Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora might not be so bad.