Mobile-exclusive MMO Avatar: Reckoning cancelled

• Mobile-exclusive MMO Avatar: Reckoning will cease development and not reach full launch.
• It has been going through limited testing, exclusive to The Philippines.
• Developer Archosaur is reporting positive numbers, so the reasons for cancelling are unclear.

Avatar: Reckoning has been cancelled by its developer Archosaur, following 'strategic adjustments''.

The eagerly anticipated mobile-exclusive MMO - which we had featured in our Best Soft Launch list - has had a bumpy development journey since it was first announced in 2022, with it originally set to be published by Tencent-owned publisher Level Infinite.

It broke away from the deal at the start of the year, with the - now self-publishing - developer offering refunds for players who played in the Philippines-limited CBT. Despite that, there was still a soft goal of launching Avatar: Reckoning - in some capacity - in the first half of this year.

Players who joined talked about it as a third-person FPS MMO, one with great graphics that did a fantastic job of emulating the world of Pandora, as well as the conflicts between the film series' two major factions. Due to regional locking, we didn't manage to get into the game, but you can see some of how it looked by checking out the video below, courtesy of GameSpot.

According to a recent update published to their corporate site, however, it doesn't look like that is going ahead. Instead, the company (and group) announced to shareholders that they would be terminating the launch plan of Avatar: Reckoning "due to the strategic adjustment of the Company’s products and operations, after careful consideration".

Does this signal bad times ahead for Archosaur?

Perhaps not. The company recently triggered a share repurchase, aiming to bring a further 10% of the public shares back into the business, and they're citing the company's good health as a great time to do it.

Dragon Raja, perhaps their best-known title, is estimated - using AppMagic data - to have had almost 17m downloads outside of China, which certainly agrees with them being in good fortunes.

What does this mean for Avatar: Reckoning?

Well, if you were lucky enough to play the game then you were one of the few. Likely, we won't see another CBT, based on that largely being the territory of former publisher Level Infinite, and so we aren't expecting to see any sort of revival of this project - or even a final push for players. Avatar: Reckoning is, by all intents and purposes, dead. 

With Avatar Reckoning now gone, if you're looking for a solid MMO you'll have to look elsewhere. Maybe check out our list of the best MMOs for Android - a great place to start!