It's a good day for fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender on every platform except Xbox. The new release based on the property, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, has suffered a sudden delay on Xbox Series X/S, while other versions came out as planned.
The game was scheduled to come out today, July 23, on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and the aforementioned Xbox systems, and players across almost all of these are getting to jump in as planned. Sadly, Microsoft's brand has hit a snag, forcing a change in plans.
"For the Xbox community, we are forced to delay the release," says a message from developer Gameplay Group on Twitter. "Due to unforeseen circumstances on a backend feature, we will now launch by September 3. Existing pre-orders will remain active and will not be canceled."
While delays happen, it's rare to see one so close to the expected launch, and rarer still on just one platform. I do wonder what the feature could be that requires such a drastic pivot, but obviously whatever it is needs particular attention.
Avatar Legends was the subject of scrutiny earlier this month, when Paramount confirmed that Mike Zaimont, a game developer who's been accused of sexual harassment in the past, is involved in the project. He "holds a position as an individual contributor" according to the company.
Despite Gameplay Group keeping pre-orders, there are players taking refunds. "Returning this shit at light speed," says one frustrated reply. "Huge scumbag move," writes another.
Others are just plainly angry. "Delaying an anticipated game by a month and a half less than 24 hours before release is actually insane," one account posted.
As of now, the Steam and PS5 versions are available to buy and play now. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is set to come out sometime later this year.
