July 27th, 2008

Avatar Opening

Also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang in several countries, Avatar: The Last Airbender is an Emmy-awarded American animated TV series created by Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko and written by a large team, including the two creators, John O'Bryan, and Nick Malis. The interesting part is that this American production is set in an Asian-influenced world, as we all have seen at least once in one of those many Manga series - you get a lot of martial arts and elemental manipulation, all action being channeled towards the goal of saving the world, of course. In our case, it's Aang and his friends, trying to defeat the Fire Nation, but if we leave the animated series behind, there's something even more interesting - a game based on the series, currently in the making...

At the end of the week, Nickelodeon announced the Avatar opening the MMORPG world to the TV series fans. To be more precise, we're talking about Avatar: Legends of the Arena, a completely new MMORPG game expected to act as a prequel to the Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series.

According to Jason Root, Nickelodeon's Senior Vice President, "The launch of this multiplayer online game gives Avatar fans the opportunity to immerse themselves in the storylines during and beyond its tenure on-air. This property has always had a deep online connection with its audience and the game offers a natural extension of the franchise to keep fans engaged with the property indefinitely."

Currently, the game is still in the Beta stage, which is being revealed at Comic-Con 2008. While the final version will be available on AvatarLegends, for now this is just an empty domain, so we have no accurate details, and now precise release date, but only the promise of an Avatar opening into the MMORPG chess game, if I can call it this way...