Ubisoft Forward's E3 2021 showcase gave gamers around the world a teaser of what to expect from Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Before that, Ubisoft Massive was confirmed to be helming an open-world Star Wars game earlier this year. While details about the Star Wars project are probably further out now, SVP of Disney Games Sean Shoptaw revealed that Disney was convinced to let Ubisoft Massive helm the open-world Star Wars game following its first meeting with the developer.

Astonishingly, the topic of a new Star Wars IP wasn't even the primary objective for Disney's meeting with Ubisoft Massive. The meeting happened back in 2019 when Disney had recently acquired Fox. As a result of the merger, the company wanted to meet with Ubisoft to discuss the already-in-development Avatar project. It was that meeting that led to the development of the Star Wars game.

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In an interview with IGN, Shoptaw went into further detail about what swayed Disney in favor of Ubisoft Massive creating the open-world Star Wars game. According to Shoptaw, the creative passion and synergy had between the two entities regarding the Star Wars IP served as a natural progression to Ubisoft taking over as developer.

Notably, Ubisoft wasn't the first choice when it came to an open-world Star Wars game. Disney had aspirations long before due to years of requests from fans, though the passion shared with Ubisoft Massive eased communication between the two. Even knowing this, there's no way Ubisoft's Star Wars could have come before 2023 as EA signed an exclusivity deal in 2013 that lasts 10 years.

Of course, delaying the Star Wars game wasn't a bad thing for Disney. According to Shoptaw, although demand was high, the main concern was doing it with the right partner at the right time. The worst fear for Disney was making a product that wasn't true to what fans wanted or something that wasn't successful otherwise. Still, it seems there's a lot to look forward to, as Shoptaw was ecstatic with the progress that Ubisoft Massive had made.

"...We're super, super excited about where this game is going. I was just on a call actually this morning with the Massive team about it, and could not be more excited about where they're taking this game and the opportunity we have with this experience."

As of now, there's no telling how much of an influence Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will have on the open-world Star Wars game. One thing for certain is that there's a lot riding on the success of Frontiers of Pandora. On the other hand, James Cameron's team shared the same level of trust in Ubisoft Massive as Disney, loaning a lot of credibility to the developer. Not to mention, the E3 2021 reveal showed that Ubisoft is taking steps in the right direction.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will release in 2022 on Amazon Luna, Google Stadia, PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

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Source: IGN