Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game Review - Balance Between All Elements

Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is a traditional 2D 1v1 fighting game developed by Gameplay Group International, acting as perhaps the strongest game adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender ever. Made in association with Paramount Games, this title features gorgeous hand-drawn 2D animation reminiscent of the two series it's based on. At the same time, robust online matchmaking and meticulously designed gameplay pay homage to everything that makes Avatar special. Since it was announced, Avatar Legends has been a clear love letter to Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, incorporating characters from both series into its highly detailed fighting. Innovative training systems also blend together with a varied roster of unique fighters, encouraging player expression in brilliant ways. For fans of fighting games and Avatar, this game is the perfect expression of bending action for beloved characters. Achieving Balance Through Bending Mastery Every Character Has Something For Players To Discover There are 12 characters on Avatar Legends' roster, including fan favorites like Toph, Katara, Aang, Zuko, Korra, and Sokka, as well as picks only fans might recognize, like Zaheer and Avatar Kyoshi. The varied collection of fighters here are diverse in how they play, but still follow a universal structure that gives every player a chance to pull off cool moves. Auto combos give fighting game beginners a foundation to work from, but the game's depth offers far more. Combat in this game is broken down into Energy and Flow, the former of which represents a resource players build by landing special moves or landing certain types of hits. Building enough Energy grants you access to stronger techniques, including cinematic Super and Final Techniques that show off a character's skills best. The constant resource building of Energy creates fast-paced gameplay, which feels smooth and fluid. Avatar Legends' fighting is mobile in every sense of the word, with characters able to dash, jump, and move around before a round even starts. This is helped even more by Flow, which can be held to have players automatically dodge attacks and build Energy. Perfectly timing Flow to avoid a strike is immensely satisfying, but Flow also carries risk. Getting thrown while holding Flow leads to your character getting punished badly, creating a danger to an otherwise reliable move. This is the thesis of Avatar Legends, as the game de-emphasizes traditional fighting game blocking in favor of Flow. Speed and movement are integral to this fighting game, yet losing yourself in its mobility can lead to your character becoming Unbalanced. When you run out of Flow, you transition into an Unbalanced state, where you are extremely vulnerable to any attack. Much like the shows, learning restraint and strategy will help you find harmony. Innovative Tutorials And Trials Create Hours Of Investigation With so many gameplay features, Avatar Legends is a complicated fighting game, with many layers under its surface despite universal mechanics. That being said, the Tutorial systems in this game are remarkable, going above and beyond to teach players everything at their disposal. Every character has Novice, Intermediate, and Master combo trials too, giving players a glimpse into every level of play for whoever they want to pick. The combo trials for each character apply to even secret fighters, but the real gem in Avatar Legends' systems is the Breakdown mode. This innovative feature puts players into a combo trial, but freezes time to give you an infinite amount of time to press that trial's needed input. This gives players a far clearer picture of what a combo is supposed to look like, with rhythmic timing for each almost turning a Breakdown into a mini-game. Learning a combo step-by-step is something fighting games suggest, but usually don't convey well. With Breakdown mode, players are not only shown in painstaking detail each "phase" of a character's strategy, but also given a chance to earn a score by repeating that process with the right timing. Breakdown mode grades players by how well they performed a combo, adding a level of progression to training techniques beyond just completing the combo in question. To put it simply, going into the "lab" of Free Training in Avatar Legends is addicting. Every character has techniques players can easily spend hours upon hours discovering, with practice sometimes being as fun as matches against other players. Match Replay, practice save states, and the ability to freely adjust other gameplay mechanics on the fly allow you to learn practically any situation easily, making mastery of Avatar Legends accessible whenever you want. Discover References From Across Avatar's Eras Multiple Characters Presented Through Marriage Of Gameplay And Story This title also shows a deep understanding of why each character is beloved, mainly through Support Characters you pick when selecting a fighter. For example, if you picked Korra, you can also pick her loyal polar-bear-dog Naga as a Support Character, whose assistance changes aspects of her moves. Korra also has her father, Tonraq, as a Support Character, as well as Raava, the spirit whose bond forged the Avatar Cycle. Every fighter gets three Support Characters, who each change an aspect of their gameplay in fresh ways. This expands the roster to include almost three variations of the 12 available fighters, expanding player expression even further. There are some deep references to the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe through these characters too, such as Sokka's sword master Piandao, or the brainwashed tour guide of Ba Sing Se Joo Dee for Azula. Fans of the expanded comic lore of Avatar will be happy to see some characters from Kyoshi's stories, while fans of the animated series can expect references to every Book of either show. Character moves are often direct references to different bending moves characters did in the series, from Toph's metal-bending to Zuko and Aang's ability to re-direct lightning. The comprehensive knowledge of everything Avatar is on full display in Avatar Legends, showing a profound admiration for the larger series. Various Chapters Feature Unlikely Character Pairings One of Avatar Legends' biggest features is Story Mode, a single-player adventure split up into various Chapters and battles where you play as every character in the game. Unlike other modes, you level up individual fighters here, unlocking Energy as you progress and even making secret characters playable everywhere else. Earning Coins and reaching new Levels helps you unlock Support Characters, making fights easier as you unravel a story of strange origins. Written by franchise veterans Michael Dante DiMartino and Tim Hedrick, the story for Avatar Legends is set during Harmonic Convergence, a spiritual event first seen in Book 2 of The Legend of Korra. This Story is also divided into a "Book" structure, with 27 Chapters that each have fights you clear before moving forward. The Story sees an odd meeting of characters from across multiple Avatar timelines, occupying a world similar but different from what fans know. Ultimately, the Story Mode is likely the weakest part of Avatar Legends, divided into predictable plot elements after a jarring opening. Each Book has a couple of surprising fights, but beyond some interesting twists on known characters, the interactions between those who've never met is by far the most interesting aspect of the narrative. For example, seeing Aang form an unlikely friendship with Zaheer as two followers of Air Nomad teachings was surprisingly wholesome, bringing merit to an otherwise thin experience. Arcade Mode offers additional stories for certain characters, featuring eight matches with a few scripted fights here and there. Once again, there is very little here, with Arcade mainly acting as an opportunity to expand the single-player experience. Challenge Others Online Within Refined Matchmaking Rollback Netcode And Lobby Systems Bring Players Together Although the build I used was somewhat limited, the online matchmaking of Avatar Legends is carefully tuned, using industry standard rollback netcode to establish clear connections between players in competitive modes. The Online Vs matches I played didn't stutter or drop frames, with minimal rollback delay established to ensure inputs felt clean to input throughout fast-paced duels. A digital PC code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review. Online Lobby systems were fairly robust too, integrating players seamlessly to ensure a good flow of challengers facing off against one another. The impressive visuals never faltered during moments of poor connection either, though the occasional screen freeze may have reflected some errors in performance the final version of Avatar Legends may smooth out. From playing on PC, the interruptions in matches were exceedingly rare, reflecting an excellent online system in place. Given the agile nature of Avatar Legends matches, queuing up for another match was incredibly fast, creating a loop where I just wanted to keep playing. The diverse nature of character play styles and Support Characters also meant that I saw plenty of variety in my matches. Avatar Legends even throws you into Free Training the moment you start searching for someone through matchmaking, allowing for unrestricted practice before your next battle. When The World Needed It Most Classic Fighting Game Merits Combined With Avatar's Greatest Hits When it comes to classic 1v1 fighting games, Avatar Legends is one of the best in years, solely for how it never limits the player's imagination and creativity. In truth, Avatar Legends has elements from different iconic titles, like Marvel vs. Capcom or the Street Fighter Alpha series. That alone gives its gameplay a blend of old and new, feeling like a game you'd find at an arcade and spend tons of coins on to keep playing. Characters are infinitely complicated with exciting levels of depth, but universal features let even fighting game newcomers perform amazing moves at the touch of a few buttons. This combination creates a low floor and high ceiling, making it great for all kinds of players to pick up, especially at a lower price than most other fighting games. As a result, no character feels homogenized. Avatar Legends' value as an entry point is strengthened by how authentic it is to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, from its wonderfully animated stages and characters to the soundtrack that reflects the sounds of each show. Sharp-eared fans will pick up on new renditions of great themes from both animated series, with sound effects for each element also represented well through player actions. Doing anything in this game contributes to a Gallery Mode as well, with special character artwork that reflects the high-effort quality put into every visual aspect of Avatar Legends. Stage and character art are paired with multiple music tracks you can listen to as you unlock them, letting players get a full perspective of the time it took to build this adaptation. Getting through the story of this game may only take between 3–5 hours, but the online gameplay, training, and other features will keep you occupied for much longer. As an avid fighting game and Avatar: The Last Airbender fan, this game is one of my favorites of 2026, refining a core experience that shows a level of love and care for a series I hold dear to my heart. For fellow fans of everything Avatar, you'll find many lines of dialogue and character actions that represent the best parts of the series, whether through gameplay or the story. With five more characters of DLC on the way, the references to the source material are only going to grow, with beloved characters all getting their time to shine. If you love classic 1v1 fighting games, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game is an experience you'll constantly find rewarding too, representing a great return-to-form in a genre that often too easily loses its way.