James Cameron wowed audiences worldwide with the theatrical debut of his highly anticipated third Avatar film, Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Set immediately after the ending of Avatar: The Way of Water, Fire and Ash sees the Sully family grapple with the death of Neteyam as the Resources Development Administration forms a deadly alliance with the Mangkwan Clan led by the vicious Varang.
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With Fire and Ash having already earned $345 million at the global box office, the Avatar franchise is poised to see continued success and expansion, with development on Avatar 4 reportedly already underway and set for a 2029 release.
For fans of Fire and Ash hoping to experience the world of Pandora themselves or journey on similar adventures to Cameron’s world and characters, here’s a list of 10 games fans of the third Avatar film will enjoy.
Spoilers for Avatar: Fire and Ash ahead.
10 Terminator 2D: No Fate
A Love Letter to Judgment Day and 90s Gaming
Fans of Fire and Ash are likely fans of Cameron’s other theatrical works, such as Titanic and The Abyss, so they may enjoy one of the latest games based on Cameron’s Terminator franchise, Termiantor 2D: No Fate.
A 2D side-scrolling action game similar in gameplay to Metroid, No Fate is essentially an adaptation of Terminator 2: Judgment Day but with branching paths that could lead to alternate endings.
For example, gamers could play through No Fate exactly the way Judgment Day unraveled or players could have Sarah Connor kill Dr. Miles Dyson, leading to potentially disastrous events for John Connor and the future war against Skynet.
No Fate is, without a doubt, one of the best Terminator games ever released, and it’s a blast getting to play through Judgment Day as both Sarah Connor and the T-800 in all its pixelated glory.
9 Aliens: Fireteam Elite
Another Bug Hunt
Aliens: Fireteam Elite
-
- Released
- August 24, 2021
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- Cross-Platform Play
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- Number of Players
- 1-3
- Platforms That Support Crossplay
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- PS Plus Availability
- Essential, Extra, & Premium
- OpenCritic Rating
- Fair
Long before Cameron enticed audiences with the enigmatic Na’vi aliens of Pandora, the director terrified viewers worldwide with his horror action film Aliens and one of the best games to replicate its blend of horror and action is Aliens: Fireteam Elite.
Set in between Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, Fireteam Elite sees a three-man fireteam of either colonial marines or military Synthetics journey to LV-895 to quell a Xenomorph outbreak and rescue Weyland-Yutani survivors.
A third-person shooter, Fireteam Elite is a blast to play with friends, as players are able to relive the Vietnam War-inspired military action of the colonial marines in intense sequences against hordes of Xenomorphs, similar to military units seen in Avatar‘s RDA.
What makes Fireteam Elite especially fun for Alien fans, however, is that it’s full of nods and references to most Alien films, largely seen through Xenomorph variants and other enemies such as Alien 3‘s Runner and Prometheus‘ Pathogen Husks.
8 Call of Duty: Black Ops
Sam Worthington’s Greatest Gaming Performance
Sam Worthington is the heart of the Avatar franchise thanks to his stellar performance as Toruk Makto Jake Sully in all three films, but while he’s best known for this role, he made another outstanding performance in the gaming world as CIA operative Alex Mason in 2010s Call of Duty: Black Ops.
The seventh mainline entry in the Call of Duty franchise and sequel to Call of Duty: World at War, Black Ops centers around Mason struggling to recall his memories of the Cold War and Vietnam War as the CIA attempts to stop Soviet General Nikita Dragovich from deploying the chemical weapon Nova 6 in the U.S.
Black Ops has one of the best campaigns in the entire COD franchise, thanks largely in part to Worthington’s performance as Mason and the intriguing mystery surrounding Mason and his connection to former Red Army Captain Viktor Reznov.
Beyond the campaign, Black Ops offers some of the best multiplayer action in the COD series and to date features the best set of Zombies maps with the incredible Kino der Toten, Five, Ascension, Call of the Dead, Shangri-La, and Moon.
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The Looming Volcanic Presence of Red Mountain
In Fire and Ash, audiences are introduced to the raiding Mangkwan Clan, otherwise known as the Ash People, and are told how they once used to be like most Na’vi clans until a nearby volcano erupted and killed most of their people, causing them to lose faith in Eywa.
The Dunmer, otherwise known as Dark Elves, and Chimer were similarly affected by a volcano, the Red Mountain of Vvardenfell in the province of Morrowind, causing the Elves to adapt to an ash-clouded environment.
Players can visit this Red Mountain in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which, beyond its ash-clouded atmosphere, is similarly alien in its appearance and wildlife akin to the nature found in Pandora.
For instance, Morrowind players can witness gigantic tree-like mushrooms throughout Vvardenfall as well as dinosaur-like Guars and massive insectoid Silt Striders used by the Dunmer as mounts.
6 Titanfall 2
The Power of Military Mechs
One of the most iconic aspects of the Avatar films are the massive RDA mechs, the AMP Suit and the semiaquatic Crab Suit, and one of the best games to feature military mech combat is Titanfall 2.
A sequel to multiplayer-only Titanfall, Titanfall 2 features both a futuristic, first-person, mech-focused multiplayer and an enthralling single-player campaign on the faraway planet Typhon.
Titanfall 2‘s campaign follows Frontier Militia Rifleman Jack Cooper as he learns to become a Pilot of Titan BT-7274 after the two barely survive a battle against the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation and struggle to reunite with the Militia.
The gameplay of Titanfall 2 is still incredibly fun and smooth, both on-foot and in mech, but what makes the game special is the bond Cooper and BT form during their journey, becoming close partners who always have each other’s back no matter what.
5 Halo: Reach
A Disastrous Alien Invasion
The background conflict of every Avatar film is humanity’s invasion of Pandora to strip it of its resources and to eventually colonize it, and one of the best games to depict a brutal alien invasion is Halo: Reach.
The fifth mainline Halo game and the last one developed by series creator Bungie, Reach is set a few weeks before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved in 2552, depicting the alien Covenant’s invasion of Reach, humanity’s last military stronghold aside from Earth.
Reach follows the Spartan-III and Spartan-II squad Noble Team as the supersoldiers struggle to defend the planet by land, air, and space against insurmountable odds before eventually being ordered to help evacuate civilian and military survivors off the planet.
While Reach depicts humanity as the good guys in contrast to their villainous depiction in Avatar, Reach still similarly portrays the bleak fight against alien invaders both the UNSC and Na’vi face in defense of the worlds.
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4 Horizon Forbidden West
Aloy’s Struggle With Identity
A large portion of Fire and Ash centers around Kiri and her struggles with identity as she strives to connect with Eywa and discover her origins and place in Pandora as someone born with no known father from a human-made Avatar.
Aloy, the protagonist of Guerrilla Games’ Horizon franchise, struggles with similar identity and parentage issues in Horizon Forbidden West after discovering herself to be a clone of the long dead scientist Dr. Elisabet Sobeck created by the AI GAIA in Horizon Zero Dawn.
On top of these issues, Aloy additionally struggles with her role in Horizon‘s post-apocalyptic world after being worshiped as both a Living Ancestor and the Savior of Meridian despite striving to live a more quiet, intellectual life.
Beyond Forbidden West‘s story, Fire and Ash fans may further enjoy playing through the game as Aloy can control and mount animalistic machines similar to how Na’Vi bond with wildlife, such as the velociraptor-like Clawstrider and the pterodactyl-like Sunwing.
3 James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game
An Underrated Movie Tie-In
Movie tie-in games are sadly a dying breed these days, but back in the 2000s, they were a plentiful subgenre of video games and one of the most underrated titles among them was James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game.
Unlike other movie tie-in games, Avatar: The Game wasn’t just a video game adaptation of 2009’s Avatar, but was rather a prequel set two years before the events of the film following Able Ryder, a Lance Corporal Signals Specialist who’s inducted into the Avatar Program.
Here, gamers get to play as both an RDA marine and a Na’vi, allowing players to utilize RDA weapons and vehicles and Pandora animals, which is seldom seen as most Avatar games only have players embody Na’vi.
Avatar: The Game additionally features a branching narrative and multiple endings, as players can choose to side with the RDA or the Na’vi, giving the game a decent amount of replay value.
2 Subnautica
The Oceans of an Alien World
Much like The Way of Water before it, Fire and Ash features much of its runtime focused around the Metkayina Clan and Pandora’s aquatic wildlife and one of the best games to freely allow players to explore the oceans of an alien world is Subnautica.
A first-person survival game, Subnautica is set on the alien world 4546B and follows the lone survivor of the spaceship Aurora Ryley Robinson, as they struggle to survive in 4546B’s mysterious waters and find a way to get back home.
What makes Subnautica great isn’t necessarily its story but rather its world and its gameplay, as players can spend dozens of hours swimming through 4546B’s oceans, scanning wildlife, and searching through debris to find schematics for subs to travel deeper underwater.
Just like the aquatic wildlife seen in Fire and Ash, the wildlife seen in Subnautica is both enchanting and terrifying in their own way, especially those found deep underwater, such as the absolutely terrifying Reaper Leviathan and Ghost Leviathan.
1 Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
The Best Avatar Game Ever Made
Without a doubt, the best Avatar game ever made to date is Massive Entertainment’s open world, first and now third-person game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
Set primarily a year before The Way of Water, Frontiers follows a human-raised Na’vi known as the Sarentu as they join the human and Na’vi resistance to free Pandora’s western frontier from RDA control while reconnecting with Na’vi life and culture.
Beyond the Avatar films, Frontiers is the best depiction of Pandora and its wildlife, with Massive Entertainment beautifully recreating Pandora’s lush forests, windy plains, and enchanting floating mountains full of animals that can be researched and hunted.
On top of these features, Frontiers got a new DLC the same day that Fire and Ash premiered called From the Ashes, featuring an invasion of the Mangkwan and several new animals and enemies fans of the new film will surely enjoy.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
