Avatar and Mario games get release date updates

Ubisoft has provided release date updates for Avatar: Frontier of Pandora and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, two of the company's biggest video games currently in the works.

As confirmed in Ubisoft's latest earnings report, both Avatar and Mario Rabbids will release before the end of this financial year (meaning anytime before April 1st. 2023). Alongside this, the French games studio confirmed that Skull & Bones, a new tactical pirate action-adventure game, will finally release within this window as well.

Avatar: Frontier of Pandora was first announced in March 2017 and is being helmed by Massive Entertainment, best known for Tom Clancy's The Division series. It looks to coincide with Avatar: The Way of the Water, the second movie in the Avatar franchise by director James Cameron. 

A trailer of the game was finally premiered at E3 2021 confirming its title and initial 2022 release date, with Ubisoft now confirming that the game will arrive before March. It's likely the game will release alongside the film's launch in December 2022, although that's purely speculation.   

"For 2022-23 we look to return to significant topline growth. It will be mostly driven by a diverse line-up of premium games, including Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Skull & Bones, as well as other exciting titles," said Ubisoft chief financial officer Frédérick Duguet. 

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is a sequel to the 2017 Switch title Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a turn-based strategy action-adventure, which sees Mario, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi crossover with the Rabbids from the Rayman universe. It's a fantastic game and secretly one of the best on Nintendo Switch, if I do say so myself.

Skull & Bones from Ubisoft Singapore was announced way back in 2013, originally a spinoff of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. It was set to be released in mid to late 2018 but underwent a major overhaul before resurfacing recently. The main objective surrounds piracy and naval warfare. 

Avatar: Frontier of Pandora will launch across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X / S, Microsoft Windows, Amazon Luna and Google Stadia. Skull & Bones is expected to launch across PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. Meanwhile, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, will release exclusively on Nintendo Switch. 

Just like Avatar, more and more developers are committing to next-gen consoles only with the next Batman game from Warner Bros. seeing its PS4 and Xbox One versions cancelled earlier this week.