After almost as many delays as the movies, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is finally here. Although the game takes place on the beautiful world of Pandora, it isn’t connected directly to the movies, as it’s a standalone story with new characters. So where does Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora fit into the Avatar timeline?
When does Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora take place?
The playable Na’vi character in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was taken as a child by the RDA and raised to help the humans fight the Na’vi natives. We don’t know exactly when the Na’vi in Frontiers of Pandora were kidnapped, but we do know that they were put in cryo sleep during the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains.
That’s the big final battle from the first Avatar movie that takes place in the floating mountains. In the Avatar universe, the events of the first movie take place in the year 2154, and we know that the Na’vi character from Frontiers of Pandora has been in cryo sleep for 15 years.
According to the official “Pandorapedia,” Avatar: The Way of Water picks up Jake’s story (after the opening montage), 15 years after the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains. That’s around the time that the player’s character in Frontiers of Pandora wakes up. This puts the year at about 2170 for the game and the second movie.
However, there’s another one year time jump in The Way of Water that pushes the timeline of the movie even further forward. Frontiers of Pandora likely takes place in the year between the RDA coming back to Pandora and when the Sully family voyages out to live with the water-dwelling Metkayina clan.
It’s also worth noting that although Frontiers of Pandora takes place at the same time as at least some of The Way of Water, the game is set in the western frontier, which is away from the action of the movie. The western frontier is an area of Pandora that has never been seen in the movies before.
That makes it difficult to pin down exactly how much the two overlap after the RDA return. However, Frontiers of Pandora is confirmed to be canon, so every new animal, clan, and area that you discover is part of the official universe, even if it was created for the game.
Creative Director of the game, Magnus Jansén, also confirmed that there have been talks about including some of the game’s clans or environments in future movies. Even going as far as to say that players will want to revisit parts of the game after watching Avatar 3.
