Highlights

  • Fury Road's prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, references Mad Max game canon, possibly paving the way for a sequel or spin-off game.
  • The open-ended nature of Mad Max allows for limitless storytelling possibilities, making it an ideal franchise for Avalanche to continue developing.
  • A new Mad Max game could intersect with the movies, featuring its characters, settings, and events, to further expand the lore and world-building of the franchise.

Mad Max isn’t necessarily an IP ripe with potential sequels—not without retreading the same rust-bucket-racing and treacherous dunes ad nauseam, at least. That said, as long as there are new adventures to tell and reboots to reimagine the universe in new ways, there may always be an audience for the gruff loner and his journey through the wasteland. This was the case with Avalanche’s Mad Max and the IP saw its most popular entry with George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road earlier that same year.

This has paved a new path in the sand for Mad Max to trek and Fury Road’s prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, is finally slated to release in theaters on May 24. Interestingly, while Avalanche’s open-world Mad Max game seemingly had no connection to the movies its license belongs to, it appears as though Furiosa’s script makes Mad Max canon by referencing Chumbucket. Even if this was a throwaway Easter egg it could be paramount for Avalanche and be the catalyst for a sequel or spin-off game.

days gone mad max vehicle management gameplay mechanics immersion atmosphere open-world
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Avalanche’s Mad Max Always Deserved a Sequel

Avalanche’s Mad Max Reference in Furiosa is a Good Excuse for a Sequel

Chumbucket dies at the end of Mad Max and therefore, assuming the character’s reference is legitimate and confirms the game as canon, it seems that Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga would be a prequel to the game as much as it’s a prequel to Fury Road. Trying to determine when the game might land on the timeline may be inconsequential depending on how significant this reference is meant to be, and there’s a chance that Furiosa has its own iteration on Chumbucket that isn’t meant to adapt the character from the game.

This would be a rather odd take, though, and having two different characters with the same name would be needlessly confusing. Either way, whether Mad Max is distant from the story Furiosa wants to tell or correlating quite heavily, it would be exciting to see Avalanche get an opportunity to develop a second Mad Max game.

One of the only issues now is that a new Mad Max game wouldn’t be as timely in its release window to launch near a movie sharing its IP unless it was to shadow-drop in the next year. However, a new game could still take advantage of Furiosa’s possible success in the next couple of years if it was already quietly in development and under wraps.

Mad Max’s Sequel Could Be Open-Ended, and That’s a Good Thing

Mad Max left Max’s story entirely open and the reason why that’s a boon for Avalanche is because it could feasibly pick it back up at any point in time. Any new Mad Max game could tell a segmented tale of Max’s harrowing adventures, and though it would be difficult to stir the pot dramatically or surprisingly it would be great to see how Avalanche could continue crafting lore and world-building alongside Miller’s movies.

If the two are meant to intertwine, then that’s even more fuel on the fire of possibilities because a new Mad Max game could intersect explicitly with characters, settings, and events from these superb theatrical endeavors.

Perhaps the next Mad Max game could be a Furiosa sequel of sorts and feature Furiosa as its playable protagonist. It’s about time the franchise extrapolated in a meaningful way and, while the Mad Max Saga doesn’t necessarily need one-to-one movie tie-ins, original games taking place around the movies’ ongoings could flesh it out further.