Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game has had its biggest update since launch. The Avatar State Patch, which went live on Steam on October 28, reached Xbox Series X|S on October 30, and it rebuilds two fighters from scratch, redesigns almost every screen in the game, adds Ranked Mode 2.0 and touches the balance of every character on the roster. Developer Gameplay Group International and publishers PM Studios and Paramount Games describe it as the version of the game they had in mind from the start.
The update is free for everyone who owns the game. For anyone still deciding, the Standard Edition costs $29.99 and the Deluxe Edition, which bundles the Year 1 Pass of five extra fighters, costs $49.99.
Avatar Aang and Nightmare Korra, rebuilt
The two headline changes are reworks of fighters who were already on the roster. Avatar Aang and Nightmare Korra come back with redrawn art, extra attacks and new super moves, and the art team deliberately pushed them in opposite directions. Aang in the Avatar State is meant to look solemn, imposing and boss-like, and he is the only character in the game lit from below. Nightmare Korra goes the other way: hunched, drifting and ghostly, dragging her feet before suddenly exploding into chain swings and teleports.
Aang's design leans on his final fight with Fire Lord Ozai and on the moments in the series where he channels past Avatars. His signature special, Avatar's Ascension, lifts him into an air sphere, and his new Level 4 Super Technique, Roku's Inferno, has him commune with the spirit world and briefly turn into Avatar Roku, who floods the whole stage with fire. One small art decision shows how much care went into him: the scar on his foot was left off, because with fighters constantly swapping sides it would have been on the wrong foot half the time.
Nightmare Korra draws on the dark double that haunted Korra in the episode Korra Alone, and on her fight with Zaheer at the end of Book 3. She now wears chains on both wrists rather than one, her moveset has been rebuilt around that look, and her super moves use mercury effects. Her victory pose zooms through a fish-eye lens into a transformation into Vaatu. The team also revealed that early prototypes had her health draining constantly to represent mercury poisoning; it was not fun to play, so she now simply starts each round with less health.
Every fighter rebalanced
Beyond the two reworks, every character from Aang to Zaheer has had balance changes. The developers singled out two. Azula's Ambition's Spark, the move exclusive to her Focused Stance, now tracks much closer to the opponent, has a far bigger detonation hitbox and can be flow-cancelled, which opens up a lot more variety in how she plays. Sokka can now cancel his sword specials straight into a boomerang toss when he is using Master Piandao as his support, and once he lands ten stacks of successful sword hits he keeps that ability for the rest of the match.
The full balance notes for the update, which is labelled Patch 4.0, are on Paramount Games' site and are worth reading if you play competitively, since the developers say every matchup deserves a fresh look.
A new look, new stages and more to learn from
Menus, character select, stage select and the in-match HUD have all been redesigned for a cleaner, bolder presentation. Stages that were previously exclusive to Story Mode can now be picked in local and online Versus, including Avatar Road and Air Temple Island, and music tracks can be chosen straight from stage select.
Single-player gets Story Mode+, difficulty settings for Story Mode, expanded Arcade content and Gallery Mode improvements. For newcomers there are new step-by-step tutorials, Combo Trials and beginner-friendly lobbies, while Training Mode picks up an expanded set of options. Ranked Mode 2.0 reworks the competitive ladder alongside a round of quality-of-life fixes for online play.
Vote for the last Year 1 Pass fighter
The update also opens the vote for the fifth and final character in the Year 1 Pass. Iroh, Ty Lee, Lin Beifong and Bolin are already confirmed for the pass, and the last spot will go to one of Tenzin, Kuvira, Amon, King Bumi or Asami Sato. Players who pre-ordered the game get one vote, the Deluxe Edition adds another, and upgrading to Deluxe without having pre-ordered also earns a vote. Voting runs for a month from the main menu.
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game launched on July 23 with 12 characters drawn from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, a story outlined by show creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Tim Hedrick, rollback netcode and cross-play. The Xbox version arrived later than the others, and this week it caught up on the update that reshapes the whole game.
