On January 24th, Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh takes command. Gather your people. We're going to need every one of them. In Section 31, a new Star Trek original movie on Paramount+. Section 31 is just about... place for people to bend their moves. Starfleet is here to make sure no one commits murder. What a cute idea. This is chaos. Let's get messy. Don't miss the worldwide premiere of Star Trek Section 31, streaming January 24th, exclusively on Paramount+.
You can now listen to Avatar Braving the Elements ad-free on Apple Podcasts. With an Avatar Braving the Elements premium subscription. Benders and non-benders alike, welcome to Braving the Elements, Nickelodeon's podcast about all things Avatar first. I'm Janet Varney. And I'm Dante Bosco. And Varney, I know this is an episode that we've both been very excited to do for a while now. Absolutely.
It's been in the works for a long time, and we are so, so psyched to have it. We're tucking it in in this third season of the podcast. We're really, really happy about it. Yes, today we're going to be able to talk more in depth about something we mentioned.
We mentioned in Braving the Elements. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, you know, those times when we're like, how do we just like, can't we just like live in the Avatar? How do we just like immerse ourselves in a 24 seven? How do we do that? Exactly. And for a lot of us. Uh, that experience comes through gaming. Yeah.
And so we're excited to get into the world of gaming and the Avatarverse. Yes, absolutely. As long as we acknowledge that it is a real place and that the gaming is the doorway into a very real universe that is 100% real, exists, and is not fictitious. It's very real. It's very real. I think that's why we love it because it's so real.
We've talked about it before. This is how you expand your universe. When you have an amazing world that you have taken such time and care to build and it has rules and it has gravity and physics and all the stuff we've talked about with Mike and Brian, that's how you're able to. to kind of expand and it starts to feel like anything is possible. This very real universe. And through gaming, we get to play in this very real...
And through this podcast, we get to talk about it. And this podcast actually has a little bit of history with our very special guest today. We are going to be talking to someone who helped shape this podcast. Very much. possible for it to be here at all and then he went on to do what he's doing now which is head of global games and emerging media for paramount back in the day doug rosen was at nickelodeon doing the podcast with us that's a song now
Welcome, Doug. Welcome to the podcast. What's up? Hey, guys. It's so good to see you. Oh, my God. This is surreal. I know. Isn't this crazy? This is surreal. This is crazy. We're all growns up. You are. I know. I'm so proud. First, it was you two. Yeah, we were just reminiscing. We're like, we're sitting in a studio doing video and stuff. And we were just like zooming it up. A lot of zoom. On our home computers. Yeah. This whole thing started, when did the podcast idea... Oh, man.
2019, I think, was the first time I talked to Janet about it. Yeah, I think so. And we kept talking about it, and we started kind of building it out. You called me like 2020-ish. Roped in for like around 20 20 and then it was like you guys out there it was Literally us three. Is this what we're doing? I know. We're doing it. We're doing it. It didn't feel like anybody was even checking for us. No, they didn't. You guys do whatever you guys want to do.
oh my gosh it was but you really championed us from the very beginning and your enthusiasm was always so encouraging and you were always like looking for ways to kind of grow us and get us to do live stuff and getting us at comic cons and every
You were. You were there. You're like a dad of the podcast. Oh, no. I can't. No, no, no, no, no. I can't be there. There's two dads. There's two dads. And then we have Uncle Doug. Uncle Iroh, Uncle Doug. Uncle Doug was there. And we appreciate all that Uncle Doug. And then Uncle Doug.
Uncle Doug said, you know what? I'm leaving you guys now. Uncle Doug said, how about I take on a huge undertaking? No, because I'm going to do something else. Like, what's he going to do? Gaming? What? Come on. Like, that's never going to go anywhere. And now here we are. Here we are. I know. You are doing. I know. So much awesome stuff in the Avatarverse in the world of gaming. I can't even wait. I mean, starting with your shirt, let's just acknowledge the best ever. A bit Avatar.
8-bit avatar. You know who every single character is. It's like you immediately are like, yep, got him. I have some of those 8-bit Zukos. People make it with the classic things and they make them and they'll have some on my desk. We'll get you a t-shirt. I think we can hook you up. I remember you leaving for gaming and at the time I was like, what is he talking about? What's Doug doing? Yeah.
He's leaving for us for what? Well, at that time, we could not be fully aware of what was truly in store for what was happening in gaming in the Avatarverse. And there's more to come. I'm catching wind of it today, and I'm so excited. Yeah. I can't wait to talk about it. You're a gamer, too. I know that. I am a gamer. I play, you know, people out there. People out there. They know. They catch me. League of Legends is my gamer tag. I mean, my username.
Rufio Zuko. Rufio Zuko. Although, when I stream sometimes, people camp me out and they... I wind up on memes where they kill me. Really? All right. I got killed one time. I got checked this out. And it was like on Tumblr back in the day. They're like, you know, rest in peace, sweet prince. Tumblr, wow. Tumblr days. That's how long ago. That's how long ago I've been streaming. All right.
Was there ever a time when it was going to be Zuko, Rufio? These are the hard-hitting questions we ask on this podcast. We've got to go in chronological order. Fair. Rufio, Zuko. And alphabetically, one could argue. I know. And, you know. With new games coming back, I was heavily streaming during COVID times, but you may, Doug, you may get me back to my streaming days. Well, now we're going to pull you back in. My Twitch was Honor Society.
Honor Society. I remember that. That's very good. We might have to turn that channel back on for these games. I'm coming over. I'm the best gamer there is. I'm going to jump right in. Everyone's going to be awed by my powers and my skills. I can't wait. I'm going to be like, let's see. If I were doing the new...
York Times crossword I would probably approach that like this watch out everybody I'm on Fortnite there are I mean it's a big leap it's a big leap but I think we'd have fun we'd have a good time we'd have a good time Well, now I know next time we need you two to play along with the game, we're going to do it. 100%. Yeah. Done. Easy. I make feelings so fun and cute and funny.
we knew that and then you know because you know what one thing i do want to talk about is is that i i would like this episode to be um
A place that welcomes in people who are very experienced gamers and also people who feel like there might be some sort of like experiential barrier for entry. You know what I mean? They're like, maybe they are excited about, they love the Avatarverse, they would love for the Avatarverse to help be kind of... gateway into gaming doing more i like that um so i think we should we'll talk about it uh
from the level of somebody who has done a bunch and then also from the level of somebody who might be like, well, I haven't heard of this, but what's it like? You know what I mean? Or something like that. All the people that watch me stream know. I'm not that good at it. But you are part of the honor society. But I'm part of the honor society. And that's very important. It's very important.
So we love this universe. We love our Uncle Doug. I can't believe we just joined that right here on the show. This is how it all happens. So you're seeing everything from the gaming side, but obviously you have to have some knowledge. and appreciation and love of the Avatarverse going in because you know that the kind of iconic personalities and skills and the world itself all has to make sense. It all has to...
translate into gaming. So not even necessarily from a gaming perspective, but just from a enjoying the show perspective. Now we're going to ask you more than three questions. And maybe a couple more. Here we go. Let's go. Let's find out. Who is your favorite character from Avatar The Last Airbender? First series. First series? Only first series. Book doesn't matter though.
Book doesn't matter. Book doesn't matter. Any book's good. We're in book three. We're in the book of fire at the moment. And I'm going to go ahead and say you could say more than one favorite if you have more than one. Yeah. I don't like picking this one. Well, you know, it's hard not to see Zuko, but I'm going to go Uncle Iroh. Of course. Uncle Iroh is my guy. Uncle Doug picks Uncle Iroh.
Uncle Iroh. As you should. He's the best. We all aspire to be Uncle Iroh. He is. He's the greatest. And he's family. He is the greatest. And he's Fire Nation. And he's Fire Nation. That's never hurt your feelings. He is. Good folks in the Fire Nation. All right. Anybody else that you especially enjoy? I mean, he's my favorite. I would say Big Momo fan too. Yay!
how do you not love Momo he's the best and then Toph Toph is my I just I love Toph great character I know great character we're spending a lot of time now even just thinking about choffing gaming and just who she is as a character and her skills and how do you approach it from that perspective and like she's the best she's the goat she is the she is probably op she's probably op she is yeah it's okay she's the greatest of she created metal bending
Isn't that incredible? She created metal bending. And also like, you know, the way that we meet Toph is in a gaming environment. So you already have this sense of her being competitive and testing, waging skills against skills. And, you know, so all of that like very much makes sense. Blind Bandit.
She would love it. She would love being like, this person chose me, and now I'm going to kick some butt. That's right. Tough bending arena. There you go. I mean, just throw her in there against the competition. It's fantastic. Blind bandit. Yeah. All right, you mentioned that you were a Momo fan. Does that mean that Momo is kind of your choice for a hybrid animal? I'm like a lion turtle guy. That's hard not to go there. From an Uncle Arrow fan. I know, I know. That makes sense. That trash.
A lot of wisdom. Yeah, so much of the mythology is built off the lion turtle. Absolutely. But it's the Momo second. What about Appa? You know, I love Appa. I feel like Appa's... Who doesn't love Appa? Everyone says Appa. But what about that heavy side? Oh, that's what the heavy side was. That was everybody loves Appa. It's true. Yeah, so I got to go a little deeper.
Understood. I will say that it's true that Momo does not get as much love. He doesn't. At least not on the show from people we talk to. I feel like Momo does not get as much love. He's also kind of... less omnipresent at some times. It's true. He's only not omnipresent because he's actually always there and you forget that sometimes he's always there.
but he's not no one's riding on no he's no one's watching him get tired as he tirelessly is taking people like across the ocean i always love me some momovision Oh, we love Momovision. We love when we get to see the world through Momo's eyes. We love when we get to hear Dee Bradley Baker be the voice of Momo as he is already the voice of Momo. But in Nightmares and Daydreams, we actually hear him. We hear the human version.
of Momo. And when we watch it, we're like, yeah, that is what Momo would sound like. Good job, Dee. Surprise, surprise. Everybody did a great job on that one. You, my friend, are just a few plums short of a fruit pie. Any other questions? No, we get to some heavier questions. I thought we were done. No, no, we're not done. We have some big questions. One being, who do you ship in the Avatar version? Now, you could forego...
The controversial ones you could do with more of a peripheral ship. What do you think? Are you going to wade in? Can I say Uncle Iroh and his muscles from season three? Swole Uncle Iroh. Swole Uncle Iroh. I feel like that's the way to go. Uncle Iroh. Yeah. Immediate image of him kissing his biceps when he said that. He was working hard out. He had that real prison workout. going on. He did. You know there's a real workout online you can do. The Uncle Ira workout. Of course.
Of course there is. I saw the pull-ups for sure. I don't know what else he was doing. Burpees probably. He looked good though. And the added bonus of not just getting cut. when you're in prison, but also hiding it from everyone. I know. So that when that reveal happens, it's almost like he knew he was on a show and that everyone's going to lose their minds. He never had a real love interest. I think we missed that. Maybe there's an opportunity. I mean, there are people that...
Ship him with Aunt Wu. But if I have to go like old school cast, it's Toph and Aang. It's Tang. Tang! That's a fun one. I'm with you on that though. I thought that for a while too because she kind of has a crush on him. Yeah.
and you know yeah they're both kind of small they're like i think she's too much for him though i think she would i don't know i think she yeah after a couple of years she'd be like i'm good tops a lot for a lot of people yeah yeah she's great but i love them together it's a great
It's a great relationship. Twinkle toes. Twinkle toes. Twinkle toes. A lot of people feel that when you give someone that many nicknames or if you like the nickname is such a sign of affection. Right. Masked in the cloak of like sarcasm often. Yeah. The sort of teasing that kind of. like that totally makes sense that's a good one
On January 24th, Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh takes command. Gather your people. We're going to need every one of them. In Section 31, a new Star Trek original movie on Paramount+. Section 31 is just... place for people to bend the rules. Starfleet is here to make sure no one commits murder. What a cute idea. This is chaos. Let's get messy. Don't miss the worldwide premiere of Star Trek Section 31, streaming January 24th exclusively on Paramount+.
okay okay well so what's the big question what else you got we also need to know uh-huh yes what kind of bender you would be and I'm curious to know if like, you know, like when we had David Berka at New York Comic Con, he kind of had a different answer for like what he wanted to be and what his kids said that he would be. So I'm curious if everyone in your family would agree with.
what you would say the kind of vendor that you are. Oh, man. Well, I would love to say I'm a waterbender and I just go with the flow. It's not quite that easy. I think I'm more of an earthbender. I feel like more of an earthbender. I agree. I would not put you as a firebender.
I'll put you as an airbender. My kids might say fire. That just means you're doing your job. I don't know. They think they have a hard life. They don't. Dad's a fire lord. Oh, no. I feel like Earth is the way. I think that absolutely makes sense. I would characterize you as well. Shout out to Earth Kingdom. Shout out to Earth Kingdom out there. And I've said this before, but I always... With Uncle Iroh, I like...
I don't mean to, this is no shade on the Fire Nation, but he's like kind of all of the, he feels like an avatar a lot of the times. He does. He wants to be in Ba Sing Se with his beautiful tea. He's funny. He loves Ba Sing Se. He enjoys the finer things in life. So I feel very like Earth Kingdom about him. But he's also the Dragon of the West. He's Dragon of the West, but he also...
Learned how to bend lightning from the water bend from the water benders and he can see he has a connection to the spirit world he can see The spirit dragon. That feels very airbender-ish. He's a very mystical man. He's very peaceful. He's a very mystical man. That tea shop. I love that tea shop. I love that tea shop. I know. Zuko's brief. Happy days.
where it seemed like maybe life was going to be a little simple for a change. It got better though. It definitely gets better. It got better. But a lot of responsibility. I'm just saying he could have used a longer vacation.
I know. Before he became the Fire Lord. You know, it's like when you get older. It was nonstop for him. You're like, remember when we had no real problems? We thought we had problems, but we had no problems. And then you're older, you got some real problems. Like, what happened those days? But can I tell you something? When I just had a tea shop. I would.
not go back to my kid problems for anything because they felt so much scarier and harder than like the quote unquote real problems we have as grownups. So I don't think I would trade. I mean, yeah, I don't know. You're like, hmm, not paying mortgage. Interesting. No accountability. Or there's something under my bed. There may or may not be something in my closet. Somebody picks up my laundry every day. That's a good thing, right? Yeah. Yeah.
I get it. I know. Those days were like, I just had to apologize to that person that I don't want to apologize to. Oh, man. I feel like there's a great story behind that. I know. Tell us. We don't have time for here on Braving the Elements today because we want to talk about games. All right. Let's do it. I know. I mean, there's probably stuff that you can't tell us. We're hoping that you'll...
give us some tidbits on upcoming stuff. But... I do feel like just based on kind of preliminary conversations that we've had and seeing what's been bubbling up and what the fans are so excited about, I feel like this is maybe the most exciting time to be an Avatar fan and a gamer. Is that fair to say? I could not agree more. Because you are up to a lot over there, my friend. We're doing a lot. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I have an incredible team. And look, honestly, Janet, back to your first point.
Most of us are just fans, right? We love the show. We love the series. We love where it's going, right? We love that we're now at this moment in time where... It's like this cusp of something we've always known has been coming. Yeah. Right. Just it's beloved. And so we feel honestly lucky to be able to work with it. We work with lots of IP. I mean, we have SpongeBob and Ninja Turtles and all that, but Avatar is always at our heart. And so.
I think if you look at what's coming, and we'll talk through it over the next few years, it's just because it's born from that place, right? And that's fun. And they're fun and they're immersive, right? And that's really where it starts. Absolutely. And it's a phenomenal time, dude, because it's... like like we're saying it's like a perfect time it's a world that we've all kind of been a part of all the fan base and it's been so real to us for so long and for
Where gaming has come? Because I know I did the voices for the original games. I know. You did. and the toys and it was a long time ago different years those games web games i would not say to go back and play those games i mean no it's fun nostalgia but it's not what's what's possible today well the technology's changed so much you know what's funny though it's the so many people who grew up with the series are now game developers and they're actually in positions and places.
where they want to make these games. That makes sense. It's made our job so easy because we have conversations and you're constantly shocked. Somebody says, oh, I love that show or now I've introduced my kids to it and I have this idea for a game I wanted to make.
around tough, and it just, they come in and that love for it is exactly what we want. They're like, I was eight years old and I wanted this game. They did. Now I'm old enough to make this game. It totally makes sense. It totally makes sense. And I think too, you know, we were talking about it with your fantastic 8-bit trip. which I also need one. Done. But this idea of like
You know, yes, the technology has come such a long way, but that doesn't mean that we don't still hold on to the nostalgia of some of the classics. So those conversations are also happening, right? Like I grew up with the show. I might have grown up with this type of video game. I'm not saying I want to play this exact type of video game, but.
I want to see how it can be integrated into what we can do now and be playful with it and be joyful about it like I feel like I'm kind of starting to see that a little bit too right you are yeah it's like it's celebrating that love right things that we've always known about the characters we wanted to know more and I think
almost an homage back to the series that we all knew but in this modern way right and at the same time we're thinking about where things go right so as mike and brian continue to build out every incredible thing they're doing we're trying to work in lockstep with them to make sure that we
also deliver on that right so it's I honestly I pinch myself like I get to make video games for a living 12 year old me with my Nintendo playing Super Mario Brothers feels very lucky and to work on this is incredible I've been certainly hearing from a lot of people how much they're enjoying playing a character that I had the opportunity to voice back in the day. So people be talking about Fortnite. They are. People be talking about Fortnite. The skins dropped on Fortnite.
Definitely blew up the internet. They look so good. I got so many messages about it right when it dropped. Exactly. And so it's amazing. So I. I have not played it yet because I'm in the middle of a move and my whole gaming setup is a little bit in disarray. But as soon as I get it back up, believe me, I will be streaming. We'll hook you up. I'll be streaming some Zuko for sure. Love it.
I mean, that is our team avatar through and through. It's undeniable. I would say Aang looks a little more... He's like a little taller. Maybe he seems a little more... They're all a little grown up. Yeah, they're all aged up a little bit. I guess I noticed it with him first because he was like...
He's not this little child anymore. I know. He looks great. Everybody looks so good. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah. We've been talking about this with Epic. Epic Games makes Fortnite. We've been talking with them for years about it. It actually started with Korra. was the first character. Yeah, because they were doing a battle pass around female warriors, and they have people who work at the studio who love Avatar, and so Korra came up.
So it really started there. And like, how do we actually do it? Truthfully, we waited a little while because we wanted to make sure I think the most important thing is that bending feels right. Because ultimately.
When you're in that world, it's one thing to look like the character, but you want to be the avatar. You want to be a bender, right? And so we spent the time and their team did an incredible job building bending into it. So we took what was originally a very Quora-focused... called integration into the game.
And then all of a sudden it exploded from there. And they said, you know what? We actually want to do all the four characters, right? We want to do, and we want to do Toph. We want to do Zuko and Katara. We want to build all the bending in. And we actually want to make it the centerpiece of what they call their kind of mid-season campaign. So not to get too weedy, but Fortnite has different seasons and they usually have a theme around it.
And Avatar became kind of the centerpiece of the midseason for them. And so they started with Korra and then all of a sudden they had this really cool teaser that dropped and like, why? Avatar was even in the universe. They built the iceberg in the corner of their map. It looks so awesome. It's so cool. And over the course of a week, the iceberg moves more slowly.
towards the coast. And so players were asking questions. And then all of a sudden you could play. And I think the most incredible thing we've seen is really just how people have loved being these characters, right? So to be an airbender.
And to fly around the map at top speed, I mean, that's the thing people love most. To be Zuko, to weave firebending, to try them all, and to tell their own stories. And I think, and I know we've shared some of the most incredible things we've seen are people taking those characters. and making their own little short movies.
Yeah, I bet. So they're playing, but they're also recreating their favorite moments and then telling new ones. So, okay, let's back up for a second. Just again, for people who maybe haven't played Fortnite, it's been around a while. There are all these different iterations they can experience.
about the seasons. What if you don't know anything about Fortnite? And now we have a sense of how Avatar integrated in. Good place to start. What are you doing when you're playing Fortnite? Yeah, Fortnite. So Fortnite's been around for years, so Epic Games started it.
they call a battle royale game it's really simple think about a hundred players get dropped into a map and your goal is to win to be the last person standing right and so you can drive vehicles you fight other people but ultimately you just want to be the last one it's a lot of fun and you get a build
And you get to build. That's right. They have a new mode now. You don't have to build for those of us who can't do it anymore. Building a parent. Building's a big piece of it, yeah. Yeah, we're not great in building.
no no no these pros are building fast I know it's definitely a very beloved kind of enterprise and people lost their minds when avatar became a part of that and it just created even more incentive for people to like super get into it and experience that bending yeah it's the start of everything we're planning i know it's been great
my mind when I first, we don't know. And then when I found out when I hit my socials, my first thought was, oh, that's what Doug's been doing. That's where he's been. I was like, that's what Doug's been doing this whole time? At least he didn't start another podcast. That's okay. how dare he uh yeah it's that's that is amazing check it out um but that's not that's not all that's not all let's talk about
Roblox. Roblox. Yeah, what's going on in Roblox? Roblox is a whole nother world. Whole nother place. Totally different feel of game. It is. It's messy. It's fun. You know what Roblox is? Yeah. Explain it. All right. So it's a big platform.
It's a place that anyone can go in, make games and have people come in and play it. There are millions and millions of not just kids, but people of all ages there every day. But the really cool thing about it is it looks like these, to your note, an old school, like old school games. Like they're not. really pretty they're just these really cool fun games and so it's almost like legos you can go in and build with it right um
And it's a great platform both to talk to... Massively popular. Massively. Hundreds of millions of people there. Hundreds of millions. If you don't know it and you have a kid, they know it. They know it. And you spent a lot of Robux, trust me. Yes, you have. Yes, you have. Everybody looks boxy. They do? Everybody looks boxy. It looks super cute and cool and fun.
What are the characters doing? They're bending? What do they have in the Roblox world? Yeah, so when we wanted to make an Avatar game, I think the obvious one was, again, bending, right? And so there's this really cool genre called Battlegrounds games that do super well on the platform.
We're actually working really closely with Roblox on this. But the idea is you drop in as a bender. You can choose your style. Earth, air, fire, water. Doesn't matter. And you got into this arena and you fight against other players. But it's really fun. Kind of Roblox. boxing fighting so it's definitely meant for like all ages um and you can level up your character learn new moves and we're gonna keep adding more right
Can we add just a little more stats to the Fire Nation? Don't tell anybody. We'll just hit it just a little bit. Just turn it up. We're going to add a secret mode in there just for you. Oh, secret mode. You heard it here. Let me ask. you this is it Barry Sanders Tecmo up down up down there you go Doug because there are so many young people on Roblox 2 it's like
Is it possible that there will be kids who get introduced to the Avatarverse through Roblox and not the other way around? Is that a thing? That's the thing. You hit it on the nose. It's very possible. And that was a real thought, right? It's this young generation coming in.
who's learning about him playing for the first time, right? And this is the... best place for them to do it the nice thing too is then they can you know go and play with their friends it's really social yeah and then hopefully go watch the series and do everything else that's the wild thing about gaming as we know like us in the industry like years ago when gaming Out.
you know just made more money than movies yep when that year happened and things started happening where now you see like people like things like halo things like so many other games where their worlds were built now they make the movies after the games the storytelling So it's kind of cool that some of us on the film side go the other way and can really make cool games and not the older games that we all grew up in, like 80s and 90s. The game from the movies were like...
Kind of like commercials for the film. Outside of GoldenEye. Outside of GoldenEye. Special shout out to GoldenEye. which is top tier movie game. But that wasn't a movie game, though. Was it? I mean, loosely, but you just got to go in and play with your friends, right? That was the front of it, yeah. But it was James Bond. It was, yeah. I mean, it was marketed as the GoldenEye James Bond.
Imagine if you started playing Goldeneye before you had seen any James Bond and then you would watch James Bond and be like, that's me. That's exactly right. If you start on Roblox and you love playing as Toph, then you watch Avatar The Last Airbender and you're like... Hi, I'm Toph. It's wild. I'm watching my own story play out now. That's kind of amazing. Talk about immersive. In worlds like this where you don't have to stick to the characters, you can kind of start building...
other things that go on. You have your own, right? You can be your own earthbender, your own firebender. That's half the fun of it. That's part of the great part of Roblox too. It's self-expression. So we want to make sure we don't lose that as well. Oh, I know you're so curious about like what kind of...
Bender people choose to be most often like all those people building some fire bandits. Well, over the years, I've seen fans build stuff like within Minecraft. You go to some fans built the Fire Nation. They built parts of the world. We're like, yeah, they just built it. They're like, yeah, they just built it. Yeah, we have an avatar set in Minecraft. Came out last year. It's amazing. Same thing. All people want to do is build. It's incredible. It's awesome. Again, world building.
World building. What better world to world build in? Absolutely. It's wish fulfillment. You want to be a bender. You want to be in that world, right? It's incredible. It's very true. What I heard was not as many firebenders. Yeah, absolutely. What you heard is what? Nothing, nothing.
I didn't say anything. What did you hear? I didn't say anything. But remember how also people made pie show into a real game? Oh, yeah. So it just goes to show that we're world building across the board. We're all over. I just signed a pie show board. The first one ever I ever saw. I was like, wow, this is a real board? gonna be if they're not already people are gonna be playing pie show inside of yeah these games yeah
Yeah, it's almost like we should make a real pie show game. It's almost, I mean, you're like, can we talk? We're talking to the right guy to make something like this happen. Yes, indeed. Okay, good to know. Now we got to get into. Realms Collide. I don't know why I have to whisper it. It's just like so dramatic. It's such a great name. Let's talk about Avatar Legends. Realms Collide. Realms Collide. Yeah, this one's really cool. This is big.
Yeah. So this is mobile. This is real? This is real? This is real. Okay. This is real. This is launching very soon. Do you mobile gamers at all? Do you play on the phone? I play, I have a few things. What do you play? TFT for sure. Okay, wow. Yeah. Teamfight Tactics. Teamfight Tactics. I'm a big Riot. You're a big, yeah, Riot. Shout out to my Riot guys over there. Okay. I've also played Mobile Legends. Yeah. Big Mobile Legends.
guy yeah those are great yeah but tft yeah so this is more of a strategy game okay but it's really cool so the idea is we're actually mixing together different timelines it's not just about ang but core isn't it kiyoshi okay different avatars They're all coming together. That's why it's called Realms Collide. Yes, yes. Into one universe to battle against a common foe. And there's a new villain in the game, which is really, really cool. And ultimately, you're working together to beat this.
But the core of it is, it's what they call a strategy build game. So you pick your avatar or your fighter and you build up your empire. Are we talking like Clash of Clans? Are we talking? Clash of Clans, but I would say a little more strategic. So think about like Age of Empires if you ever played that. Right, Stellar?
And those are the kind of classic, what they call strategy, kind of 4X games, which are about exploring, it's expanding your empire, and then taking over the world. But it's cool. In a good way. Don't say, don't get any ideas. Are we taking over the world? We're not really trying to take over the world like that.
The whole world. But that's another one where you can just go so deep. I mean, there are so many. There's so much. It's so rich. There's like stuff that you, I mean, it just blows my mind. I'm big on strategy games. I love strategy games. You do?
I like this one. I like strategy games because, you know, we're getting older. I know. This one's cool. You want to build your legacy? No, the thing is about when you're playing video games with people for, you know, it's just a video game. I'm like, no, it's a sport.
So a lot of these games, when you're playing against younger people, their reactions and stuff, you're playing League of Legends, you're playing an eSport game, they're outplaying you because they're younger and faster than you. Strategies.
You don't need the reflexes for this one. You don't need the reflexes. You need knowledge. But you do need to pay attention. You need wisdom. You're becoming an encyclopedia. You need the wisdom to outsmart these youngins. Like Uncle Iroh. Like Uncle Iroh. Play the long game. Yes, indeed. Very, very cool. I can't wait. I'm definitely downloading this game and playing this. Let's go. You're going to like it. It's a lot of fun. It's epic. It's epic.
You could just do that. So the hardest thing is going to be tearing someone away from their mobile when they're in the middle of... Yeah, it's the kind of game you're not going to want to put down, and we're going to keep adding to it, right? My wife already yells at me. Stop it! Yeah, I know. I know.
I'm like, babe, this is for work. This is our safe space. We're here to celebrate all that right now. Don't even worry about it. This is Avatar. This is for work. That's right. My kids come into my office and play video games. What are you doing? I'm working. I'm working here. I'm working. I know. Amazing. Amazing. Okay, so we have that. Yep. But we also have some stuff.
that we're looking ahead at what else what can we what can we know anything you know i wanted to come and at least share share some secrets share some of where we're going i know i know uh well there's a couple of things i think And especially if you're a competitive gamer, Dante, you're going to love this one. I keep saying, everyone who plays games will be like, this guy is no good. Hey, you guys, you know I'm pretty good. I've gotten better. Let's be honest.
I enjoy it. I enjoy it. Well, I think we already signed you up to be our influencer for this game. I'm 100% in. Let's go. Yeah, let's do it. So do you play Street Fighter? Street Fighter. Of course. Come on. Shout out to Raya. Raya is my classic. Raya is the best. Yeah. Yeah. Street Fighter.
one of the best fighting games of all time. The best, maybe. Might be. Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat's great, too. Mortal Kombat's great, too. Yeah. Tekken or others. Oh, gee. Oh, Tekken. I mean. Marshall on Tekken. I know. You're there. It's good. I'm there. No, Street Fighter is like, oh, gee. like fiercely loved. And that 2D animation style is amazing. So we've been wanting to do something like that for Avatar for a while. So we finally have a game coming out.
next year. It's going to feel like Street Fighter. It's going to be incredible. You get to pick your bender. We're starting with 10 at launch. What? What characters are we? The gang's going to be there. But we want to go deep with a wider roster, right? You know what I'm looking for. You know what I'm looking for. Who are you looking for? Jet. Jet? Looking for Jet?
He's looking for Jet. I'm always looking for Jet. I don't know if Jet's in there. I can't confirm or deny. We don't know. I mean, we don't know. Rumors are that he's still around Ba Sing Se somewhere. They're spotting some of them every day. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. That's the correct answer. Well, Adam is a secret character. There's rumors. There's rumors. It's like Elvis and Tupac.
People said they've seen him around Boston. Is he Biggie or Tupac? Biggie was down there, Biggie and Tupac's around him. Uh-huh. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. yeah okay so we're so you take it a little deeper than just those initial just the court is beyond the court yeah and we're gonna that's gonna so there
This is the fighting games. This is like my favorite stuff. So I can't wait to see this. Yeah. And this is all right. You know, these games, it's all about the mechanics, right? So this is definitely for people who love that style. But at the same time, if you played Super Smash Brothers or games like that for Nintendo.
be approachable too super smash is great it is it is but this is definitely a this is a really fun fighting game so so i can't wait for to see what the mechanics are and what the special i was going to say i'm just thinking about i'm already thinking about the sort of like
All right. What fire move is going to be? Ultimate abilities. Ultimate abilities. I want to see what the joystick kind of stuff are going to be. We'll get you in early. We'll get you in early. We'll wait to see. Come test it next time you're in the office. I love that. I love that.
Fantastic. And now we've got to add Jed as a secret character. Secret. I mean, he has been spotted around Ba Sing Se. He's a secret character in that you just in 2D see him walk through frame in the background. I think that was Jed. He can't play as Jed, but you can see Jed. in the background with a little there's gotta be i mean uncle iroh's gotta be heavy i mean sozin's gotta be i mean she's talking about firebenders but
I don't want to see anybody playing Azula. I don't want to see anybody playing Azula. I have no sense of humor. I definitely am happy to see. Lightning? Come on. I'm happy to see some lightning. I'm happy to see some lightning. I'd love to beat Azula on the video game several times. We're just going to put that on a loop.
I would love to. Yeah. Where's Dante? No one's seen him for four days. He's just beating Azula. Over and over. Non-stop. Over and over. Oh, my God. I heard him screaming. You think you're so great, sister? We'll just do a marathon stream. Zuko battle Azula every time for the next 24 hours. Let's go. Maybe I'll play Azula. That'll be fun for you because I'm not very good. So you can be like, this is almost too easy. But hold on a second. When the avatars come in. Come on, that's...
Yeah, you got to balance the characters. You know how it is. Well, the thing is, though, the Avatar is good at all four, but Zuko is the best at firebending. So you have to go down that route. If there was like an Avatar state, like ultimate, you're like, come on.
Dude. Game over at that point. I mean, so maybe that's not being offered up going into the Avatar State. I don't know. You have to unlock that. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. I'm just excited to see them and really get to play the fighting aspect of it, which I think we've been dying to play this.
kind of game I know since the beginning always absolutely the whole world started but this is what we're talking about we're talking about new but we're talking about mixing with stuff that is also beloved that people are like I want to see Avatar in this kind of context I know it's awesome and then you know people and it's like, can we put him in Super Smash because we want him to fight against other people?
Call Nintendo. See if we can do it. Or Marvel vs. Capcom. Avatar vs. Marvel vs. Capcom. Watch out. I mean, this is where the gamers' minds go. It's like, now we want to see them against everybody. Of course. I know. Oof. All right. You want to see like X-Men. You want to see like Mr. Freeze. Wait, Mr. Freeze? Is that for Batman? That's Batman. Hold on. That is Batman. It's okay. What's the Iceman? Iceman. Iceman. But yes. Don't. Don't. Don't.
at me. And it's been so great. Don't. I knew what I was saying. I called myself on it. She was right. I called myself on it. You called yourself on it and you were right. I'm going to see Rogue get some Katara waterbending skills. Wow. We're going crazy right now. I love that. I love that. All right. Let's talk about RPG. Yes. RPG.
There is something afoot that we must discuss. You guys are going. You've actually been doing a lot, Doug. I didn't know what you were doing all these years. Oh my gosh. He left us and I had no idea. He and his team have been very busy indeed.
retired huh I just thought you left us like an ex-girlfriend and just lied to us like you know I'm doing gaming so whatever bye first of all I'll just say and I don't mean to be a snob about this But if I were to be playing a great video game RPG, I would want Avatar Studios to have... Just because their stories are so epic, that's the nexus of where all the storytelling comes from. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so. No? No.
Tell us what are we talking about here? Yeah, yeah. So this one's really exciting. We've been talking a lot about... fighting yeah right and that's great and that's always going to be a part of it but i think the thing from the beginning when we were talking to mike and brian when they first came back was how do we build a new story in a world that lets fans really go in and immerse themselves
in it in a big way right now how do we tell an original story what are we talking about oh my gosh so rpg role-playing games right so what we're we just announced this but we're gonna give you a little more dirt today Give you some exclusives. We love exclusives. We are making...
Triple A, which is a sort of big budget. Big budget. Open world. Triple A is. Yeah. Yeah. Open world action role playing game, right? Set in the Avatar universe. Are we talking PC? Are we talking PS? PC, console, next gen, everywhere. Yeah. Everywhere. So this is the kind of.
Big, epic, big budget game that we dreamed. That I've dreamed, right? As a fan, as somebody coming in, like working on this, this is what we wanted to do. Yeah. So we're working with a great studio called Saber Interactive. Shout out to Saber.
best, and we're actually funding the game alongside them, which just shows you how much we love this because we really believe in it. But this is the game I think the fans have always wanted, right? Drop you into the world, you get to create your own bender. Awesome. So you can be whoever you want. We're not going to tie you down. And you're going to start your journey. It's set 7,000 years ago. It's an original story from Avatar Studios.
Mike and Brian. Original story. Step back from the mic for a second to have that reaction. Open world. Open world. 7,000 years ago. Yeah, and you're going to get to. Cracking open this whole new. I have chills right now. You're going to have me. Turn on my streaming back on. We're never going to be seen again. We're going to get to this hundred plus hour gameplay situation. Yeah, you know, hundreds a lot, but I think if you dive deep into it.
and you go on every side quest and you want to explore and you want to replay You'll be able to spend as much time. Oh, you've never seen me play Open World. I get lost. Oh, you're totally going to get lost. I'm going to come find you. Oh, I get lost. Here's my concern. I feel like I'm going to take four days to just decide what kind of vendor to build out. There's that. I feel like I'm going to be so torn. And there's a beautiful-
It sounds like there's going to be options on all kinds of stuff. Fluidly on gender. Exactly. And then there's the beauty, I'm sure. I can't wait to see the beauty of the world where you just start walking around like, oh, this is beautiful. What's going on over here?
Let me go see this. This is a dream. You'll just get to wander around the Earth Kingdom, go into Ba Sing Se, explore around. Can we do our podcast from inside this world? That would be. Yeah, why not? I'm so excited. That'd be cool. We should probably. work that out. That'd be great. Maybe we can find a good tea shop in Boston. I heard of a good tea shop in Boston. I know some folks out there. I know. Good tea.
Okay. It's a really cool moment in time. I think, you know, a volcano explodes and sort of sets forth on this ice age, right? But not by anyone's doing, just by... It's just a cataclysm. So it's not like someone from the... No. No. We have a little bit of PTS from that. Let's not blame everything hot on the fire nation. Volcanoes happen. Volcanoes happen. There are some lava benders out there.
Yeah. Yeah. I know a few. You know a few. You know a few. Okay, so we have this mortal threat. We have a natural incident. Disaster. Yeah, this threat. Yep, and you find yourself as a new avatar. Won't spoil more.
but you have to discover there'll be a new villain discover who you are in this world and you go on a journey right and we're early right we're just in development so we'll share a lot more obviously but that's that's the that's the scope of what we're aiming for is there any kind of because we
This happens too with the shows, right? We want them when we want them because we're so excited about them. But the more detailed, the more rich, the more fabulous. The more A's in these games, the longer it takes. I know. That's the problem. Don't get to, like, at least set your calendar. Don't come at us. Earlier than blank. And then maybe around blank. What year are we talking about? You know, I would say 2027, 2028. But again, like all things, it's far away. It's also around the corner.
Don't hold us to it. Game dates always shift. We want to make sure it's good. Why are the games... Because it's hard to make. In all the gaming world. It's got to be good. I haven't seen a gaming deadline ever.
No one meets any of these gaming deadlines. It's good for us to have to wait for what we want. It teaches us patience. And you want it to be right. And you do want it to be right. We ain't never seen a gaming deadline that hasn't got pushed. We ain't seen a deadline that hasn't got pushed in the gaming world.
I feel like we've been waiting this long for a game like this. We want to make sure it's right for the fans. You're right. A thousand percent. I can't wait. Couldn't agree more. I can't wait to save that sweet world. That's going to be great. I cannot wait to save it. I know. I know.
Brian was so excited he actually drew up some mock key art. Really? I think we're going to show it to people too. I think we have the visual to show. So it's Ice Wars is the working title. We're going to figure out what it is. I cannot believe you're telling us this right now. I just have to. full stop for a second. We just got this exclusive info. Yeah.
I'm losing my mind. This is the thing I love because when you have the original creators involved in the game making and then it's their stories, it's more stories of the actual world from the source. That's it. It's phenomenal. That's the thing. It's world building. I know. Can we at least get an avatar now and find out? Brian's doing this.
Mock up for us. And it's intriguing me now because we're in the Earth Kingdom. Well, it's all the kingdoms. All four kingdoms. All four kingdoms. Yeah. And there's a volcano. There's a volcano. There's ice wars. So maybe...
We have some kind of new adversary. Well, and I don't know. I mean, 7,000 years ago, civilization as it's been established when we first meet Aang, for example, or even going back further, the stories that we know a little bit about, you know, we know Yoshi, we know Yang Chen.
we know we've seen a little bit of Avatar 1 but what kind of world we're going to you know and you don't have to tell us this but like I'm just going crazy on like what is the structure of civilization going to be like back then like is it going to look the same I doubt it because You already know how much changed just in the... You said 7,000 years ago. I don't even know what...
How long ago is that? 7,000 years ago? That's like many hundreds of years ago. It's 2024 right now. 7,000 is... It's like 1999. That's right. It's a long time ago. We're going way back. Cassette tape is what we're talking about. It's going to be a big deal. Doug. I can't believe that you just... I feel... We feel really lucky right now. No. I'm just telling you two, right? Yeah. Oh. Uh-huh.
You guys out there, don't tell anyone anything. We're all going to keep it a secret. Secret between all of us. This is so exciting. Oh my gosh, you really came with some gems. I had to bring something. I had to bring something. I'm very excited about the whole gaming world. As excited as the fans out there for all the animated stuff coming out this...
I know. Next level. And there's a lot more, right? I mean, we can't go into everything, but we're obviously we're looking at VR, what we can do there. We're looking at other types of games, things that are more narratively driven, things that are more casual. So puzzle games. We want to make sure we have something for everybody. And so...
over the next five years, you'll see a lot. So I'll come back when I can talk about more. Oh my gosh. Let's go. Let's do it. Everybody. Oh, okay. Try to have a normal day, I guess, now after you heard about all of this. This is huge. There's a lot to put it all on your to-do list. Again, if you're an experienced gamer, we got something for you. If you're just dipping a toe in and for you, the Avatarverse is the reason to get involved, we got you. Yeah, we got some stuff. We got you. Doug.
Thank you so much. Uncle Doug. Uncle Doug. Thanks for coming by. We're sitting here because of you. We are learning about new stuff because of you. Keep up the good work. Thank you so much. Thank you both. I'm so excited to see. Where this podcast, little podcast is good. It's amazing. And the fan reaction is incredible. I still listen every week. Of course I do. We have fun. I do. No, no, no. We have fun. Listen, we've been schooled by and had some amazing.
experiences with fans listeners watchers of the show come on and been a part of it and that's one of the things we love about it too just listen to the super fan episode it was great yeah but see now You know, from reviewing and talking about all the series and the books, going to comics, the novels, we're going to have to go into the games. We're going to have to go into the games. I'm so there for it.
Talk about the games. Play the games. Discuss it. Years to come. Years to come. Maybe play with some people out there. Yeah. I get my skills up. You get your skills up if you play with some. We have to represent. We have to represent. Amazing. I can't wait. Doug, thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thank you both. Thanks, everybody. All right, friends. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Avatar, braving the elements now.
Want more Avatar? You can follow the official Avatar accounts at Avatar The Last Airbender on Instagram and Facebook. You can also follow the official Avatar Braving the Elements account on TikTok at atavatarofficialpodcast.
Tell your fellow Avatar friends to listen, rate, and follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts. This podcast is hosted by Janet Varney and Dante Bosco. The theme song was composed and produced by Jeremy Zuckerman. Audio production and editing was provided by Zee Rodriguez-Thomas and Mindjam Media.
Avatar Braving the Elements was executive produced by Lynn Keston-Sessler, produced by Lisa Summerscale-Steeler with consulting producer Janet Varney, with production support from Kira Chow, and special thanks to Avatar Studios, Garrett Beltis, and Danielle Pretzfelder-Demczyk. Trademark, copyright, and phonorecord, 2023 Viacom International Incorporated, all rights reserved. This has been a Nickelodeon original podcast.
On January 24th, Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh takes command. Gather your people. We're going to need every one of them. In Section 31, a new Star Trek original movie on Paramount+. Section 31 is just about... place for people to bend the rules. Starfleet is here to make sure no one commits murder. What a cute idea. This is chaos. Let's get messy. Don't miss the worldwide premiere of Star Trek Section 31, streaming January 24th exclusively on Paramount+.