Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game has some saucy combos that make for quite the advertisement for the game. Even to the untrained eye, seeing Zuko pull off a 28-hit combo with multiple hard-to-execute dive kicks is awe-inspiring. But even though these flashy combo videos are a blast to watch, they canโt hide how poorly Legendsโ launch has gone.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The bad news started before release when Gameplay Group International announced the Xbox version of the game would be delayed only a handful of hours before it was set to go live. Citing โunforeseen circumstances on a backend feature,โ it will now launch by September 3rd. Itโs impossible to say what happened, but pulling the rug out from a certain segment of the players this close to launch reeks of mismanagement, as this isnโt a common problem other games often have. It seems like something was overlooked.
The Avatar Legends Switch Versions Have Suffered the Most
Said note also came with the news Switch users would only have access to the standard edition, not have languages other than English, and launch without crossplay. These features are supposedly coming down the line, but, again, this is quite the news to drop only a few hours before launch. Itโs also unclear if effected players will be compensated in any way. Regardless, this insultingly late warning has horrible optics and screws over certain segments of the player base. Gameplay Group International has been cagey about both Switch versions, omitting it from some of its marketing materials and not being up front about the delayed Switch 2 port, so this has been a consistent problem.
Itโs not like the Switch version even runs well, either. Fighting games often run at 60 frames per second because they, more than most genres, require fast response times. Legends, on the other hand, can barely hit 30 frames per second on Switch, as shown by some gameplay analysis videos. Playing an updated version of the original Switch version on Switch 2 leads to better results, but itโs gross to sell a game on hardware that basically requires an upgrade to run at an acceptable frame rate. Itโs like the wretched Mortal Kombat 1 Switch port all over again, albeit with better visuals (and less dead-eyed Johnny Cage).
PS5 and PC owners donโt even get a full game. Many of the tutorials are unfinished, often lacking explanatory text or even labels on the menu. Sometimes a tutorial will load up and have players press buttons but not actually explain what is going on or what is being tutorialized. Command lists also have various errors and temporary art. Some characters donโt have as many trials as the others. None of the solo modes have difficulty options. Despite being promised in a trailer just before launch (that has since been pulled on the game’s official channel), ranked play is nowhere to be seen. Three fighters โ Avatar State Aang, Nightmare Korra, and Ozai โ also have comparatively inferior animations. There are numerous other small missing or unpolished features, all of which contribute to the notion that this game just simply wasnโt ready to come out.
That begs the question, then: Why did Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game have to come out now at all? Evo 2026 already happened (a few months earlier than normal), so thereโs not a tournament at that scale to rush to. The second season of the live-action Avatar Netflix show debuted in June, so the synergistic window has already passed. Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, the next animated film, is out on July 25th, so there is synergy there.
But some light synergy is not worth pushing out a game this early and covers up for what is likely the real reason it was prematurely pushed out: The publisher wanted to save money and didn’t want to delay the game once again. This kind of a hobbled release is only going to scorn players and make sure Legends is launching on the back foot. A free DLC character isnโt going to make that much better and doesnโt make up for the embarrassing roadmap the studio put out that is full of mainly fixes and stuff the base game should have launched with. It reads like an early access roadmap, which is not a flattering comparison since those games come out with the shared knowledge it is not finished. Gameplay Group International only started admitting to Legendsโ shoddy state when it was too late.
It’s Hard for a Fighting Game to Shake a Bad Launch
Botched launches and a lack of communication are, sadly, somewhat standard in the modern video game industry. But they are particularly bad for fighting games since they often, ideally, have long tails and, because of their competitive and collaborative nature, thrive off community involvement. Mortal Kombat 1 notoriously had a terrible launch with its distinct lack of features, some of which were genre standards (like cross-platform play) and others that were even present in prior NetherRealm Studios games. While it did improve, it was too late, which is likely what pushed NetherRealm to move on from the game only around a year and a half later.
Invincible Vs had more than its share of presentational issues, too, and felt like it needed another month or so. 2XKOโs console launch was comparatively smoother but partially defined by technical woes. And even though layoffs are random nowadays and arenโt always dependent on performance, both studios were hit with layoffs shortly after launch.ย
This isn’t a recent phenomenon, either. Street Fighter 5 and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite were mired in different controversies when they came out โ bare-bones presentation for the former and janky visuals and animations for the latter โ and neither fully recovered. Making good on launch-era hype is crucial in building a foundation that a long-standing fighting game needs, especially since it is rather hard to undo a negative first impression. Itโs a communal genre, so the temperature of said community โ a gameโs biggest cheerleaders โ needs to be relatively hot.
With abysmal communication, a completely botched port, two delayed ports that were pushed at the last second, and a myriad of missing or unfinished features, Legends is seemingly in a worse starting place than the aforementioned fighting games. Itโs frustrating to see any game like this fall victim to poor planning and an ill-fitting release date and doubly so when said game is full of promise. Legendsโ fighting mechanics, while tricky to master, are fluid, flexible, and astonishingly deep. But thereโs a lot more to a modern fighting game than having โthe juice,โ and the type of nonsense that has plagued Legendsโ launch is a good way to dump too much of said โjuiceโ down the drain.
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Image Courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment -
Image Courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment -
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