Jade Empire 2 is most likely not going to happen anytime soon, but a BioWare-style RPG based on Avatar: The Last Airbender would be the next-best thing. Due to their similar aesthetics and worldbuilding, an Avatar game built on the RPG elements that BioWare introduced in Jade Empire would be a handy consolation prize for the sequel being so suddenly canceled. It would also excite fans of the animated series, who have been clamoring for a game in this style for years.
Jade Empire was an RPG made in 2005 by BioWare. and is mainly remembered by hardcore fans of the company for being the clearest precursor to Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The game takes place in the eponymous Jade Empire, in a story heavily inspired by Wuxia martial arts films, as the player takes control of the last of an order of monks in a journey to rescue their lost master. Fans of the game have been waiting for BioWare to make Jade Empire 2, to no avail.
Jade Empire's relevancy as an IP has sadly diminished to the point where there would be little point in making a sequel. However, Avatar remains one of the most popular properties in the history of Nickelodeon, where it debuted, with people still discussing the original series to this day. An Avatar RPG would tick all the same fantasy boxes Jade Empire did, while potentially drawing a larger crowd.
The World Of Avatar Is The Perfect Setting For An RPG
There have been Avatar games before, released during the original show's run on the PS2, but none of those games made a big enough impact to be remembered as anything but a novelty for hardcore fans. The reason for this is because none of the previous games took sufficient advantage of the setting and world they were working with, something BioWare is known for. The studio has an acclaimed track record with licensed material - even though BioWare isn't working on the KOTOR remake - so this wouldn't even be too far out of the company's comfort zone.
Jade Empire's combat focused on combining martial arts, weapons, and elemental magic, so grafting an Avatar skin onto this system would be an almost seamless transition. The world is so expansive, richly detailed, and ripe with potential, the game could be set anywhere in the show's world at any point in its history. Avatar as a property is the kind of story and world that BioWare in its prime cut its teeth on, and the pairing would be a match made in heaven.
The Avatar property has not been even half as idle as Jade Empire has been the past decade. Besides the upcoming Netflix show that fans anticipate with increasing trepidation, there are reportedly two Avatar: The Last Airbender games currently in development, one being an MMO, and the other being a console RPG. Since Paramount's recently founded Avatar Studios does not have a dedicated game studio attached, both games are being helmed by yet-unnamed third parties. With any luck, BioWare could still get to show what it would've done with Jade Empire 2 in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender.