On a May 11 earnings call, a Ubisoft executive has confirmed that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, and Skull & Bones are all expected to release during the company’s current fiscal year, narrowing the window in which gamers can expect their individual release dates to land. More specifically, it was clarified that all three are targeting a release date some time in the second half of the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is current-gen exclusive and based on the film franchise created by director James Cameron, which will be releasing its second of five planned movies in December 2022. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is the sequel to 2017’s Ubisoft and Nintendo collaboration, delivering tactical, turn-based combat featuring characters from the Super Mario and Rayman franchises. Skull & Bones is still the most nebulous of the three, despite being in production for quite a while. The multiplayer-focused pirate game was originally conceived to build on the success of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag‘s naval combat, but has floundered in development for nearly a decade.
Ubisoft’s fiscal year will end on March 31, 2023, putting its halfway mark at the beginning of October 2022. There has yet to be more specific information, but this window is in part a reassurance on the company’s plans to launch Skull & Bones despite delays. Ubisoft’s earning report states Frontiers of Pandora, Sparks of Hope, and Skull & Bones are the publisher’s top three premium releases when it comes to sales expectations. The earnings report itself can be found on the Ubisoft website, with Video Games Chronicle reporting that it was chief corporate finance officer Frédérick Duguet that asserted on the earnings call that all three of the company’s games were aiming to release in the fiscal year’s latter half.
While half of a fiscal year doesn’t narrow it down very far, the timeframe does make sense for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which is likely aiming to launch around the same time as Avatar: The Way of Water. The series’ second film will hit theaters on December 16, 2022, and despite Frontiers of Pandora featuring a brand new story, the extra attention on the franchise will likely be a boon for sales. The Mario + Rabbids sequel actually has the most official footage out of the three titles, supporting the 2022 release it’s been promoted with.
Despite this recent assurance that Skull & Bones is on the way, it being released in the near future remains the most dubious of the three. A recent leak of gameplay footage proves it’s in an advanced state of development, but the game has been delayed multiple times since it was announced at E3 2017. The fact that Skull & Bones hasn’t been canned shows Ubisoft is determined to actually get it finished, but both Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope seem more certain of hitting the release window in the second half of the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
Sources: Ubisoft, Video Games Chronicle
