Despite debuting all the way back in 2009, the Avatar franchise is only just getting started. After a lengthy 13-year hiatus, Avatar has returned to the public consciousness with the release of Avatar 2: The Way of Water, a movie that reintroduces audiences to Jake Sully and Neytiri and delivers a lot of wild world-building concepts. It's clear that James Cameron has a plan for the future of this franchise, and that it would be a real shame if that plan didn't include more Avatar video games.
There are currently at least two Avatar games in development right now, with the first being the long-awaited Ubisoft open-world game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and the second being the mobile MMO Avatar: Reckoning. While these titles are sure to keep Avatar fans happy, Pandora's a big world, and there's more than enough room for even more adventures set in the Avatar universe, with the real-time strategy genre being a natural fit.
The Avatar Universe Perfectly Fits the Real-Time Strategy Genre
First truly popularized in 1992 with Dune 2, the real-time strategy genre is still one of the gaming's most popular, especially in the PC market. When it comes to creating an RTS game, there are a handful of mechanics and systems that are simply expected to be present. For a start, there needs to be at least two playable factions, with each having its own unique types of units. However, while each faction's units will be unique, they can usually all be sorted into the same distinct categories, often being air, land, and water units.
The Avatar franchise is already perfectly suited to the real-time strategy genre, with its first two movies already depicting those core fundamental systems. Avatar already has two distinct factions, the Na'vi and the human RDA organization. The movies have also shown that each faction has its own set of unique units. For the Na'vi, they have Direhorses for ground units, Ikran for the air, and with the inclusion of Avatar 2: The Way of Water, the Na'vi now have a slew of sea animals for naval battles, such as the Ilu seahorses or the Tulkun whale-like creatures. The RDA has units that perfectly compliment the Na'vi's, with AMP mech suits for the ground, SA-2 Samson gunships for the air, and Mako subs for the water.
An RTS' setting is also incredibly important, with it needing to contain a variety of different biomes to be used as different maps. Avatar's world of Pandora is more than suited to this, with lush bioluminescent forests, oceanside encampments, and futuristic RDA facilities all being shown frequently throughout the movies. These different locations provide more than enough visual and mechanical variation for an RTS, with each biome potentially giving different factions and units an advantage or disadvantage based on the terrain.
While an Avatar real-time strategy game already has more than enough source material to draw inspiration from, even more content is coming over the next few years, with at least three Avatar sequels already confirmed to be in development. Each of these sequels is sure to add at least one new biome to the franchise, along with potentially a few more factions and more potential units. James Cameron has already teased that a new hostile tribe of Na'vi called the Ash People is going to make an appearance in Avatar 3, along with the volcanic region they reside in, which would all make for great content in an RTS.