Up to the end, 2023 continued to drop game after game and on December 7th, Ubisoft released Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for Amazon Luna, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S. Although the game always looked good, it didn’t get much of a promotional push, and on social media, few people seemed excited about its release.
I never expected Ubisoft to provide one of the best PC ports of a game in 2023, but they did, and it’s stunning to watch in motion and even better to eyeball in photo mode. The game has some great missions that showcase it in a noteworthy way, but it also has large sections that can be tiresome, and it’s stuffed way too much with needless mechanics that the game didn’t need.
The story takes place during the Second Pandoran War, you know, that one-year time jump in Avatar: The Way of Water?…no me neither as I’ve not watched the second movie yet. In this story, the Resources Development Administration (RDA) has returned to Pandora and are trying to colonize the Western Frontier. That’s the central conflict of the story.
The story revolves around a brave Na’vi character, The Sarentu, who takes on the RDA’s encroachment. This new game features new characters who haven’t been seen in the movies, at least so far. Although it’s not a direct sequel to Ubisoft’s James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game or a movie tie-in game, it expands upon the universe and incorporates minor crossover aspects from the universe fans know so far.
A lot was said before the game was released about it being another Far Cry reskin, but it’s definitely more than that. If anything, I get more of a Crysis vibe from how the game looks and plays (yes, I know Crysis was a pseudo-sequel to Far Cry). The game could do with better stealth, as once you’ve been spotted, it becomes just another shooter. The stealth is seriously underdone; in a game with so much vegetation, you would think it should be a breeze to hide, but then you are playing as a blue 9-foot alien, so it could be done by choice.
The setting also helps convey that feeling for Crysis, and even after some stunning games in 2023, like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, Avatar is probably the best-looking game I’ve played. The world is incredibly dense and alive with foliage, and across the different biomes, changes are stunning to explore and get lost in. Unfortunately, the world is just too big, and I can’t help feeling that a tighter world and a more linear story would have helped the game. By the time I finished, I still had quite a lot of the world map unexplored, and I’m not sure I’ll go back to see this until further DLC is released.
It’s one of the first new games on PC to also launch with support for FSR 3 (see frame generation or also…FAKE FRAMES) at launch, and it puts in a great showing here, especially compared to the versions that were added to Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum when it launched. Playing a game that looks like this at framerates over 120fps is insane, and although it doesn’t feel quite the same as the native performance of the same level, I was impressed and look forward to seeing how it is used in more games.
I also love that there is an “Unobtanium” settings in Avatar. To enable unobtanium settings, PC gamers need to enter Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s “Properties” tab and add a command line argument to the game. Then add “-unlockmaxsettings” to the command (without quotes) and hit save. I tried it and didn’t notice a vast improvement over the Ultra settings, but my framerate took a massive hit. Thanks to FSR 3, I could maintain a nearly 60FPS average.
PC looks glorious, but even on console, the games get a fantastic showing, and it’s impressive that they have produced this version of Pandora and still hit mostly 60fps on XSX and PS5; over on XSS, you are stuck at 30fps, but the game is still a looker.
The game has some lengthy cut scenes to start before an opener that doesn’t exactly set the tone for what you should expect later. You are stuck inside and must find your way through a compound, tunnels, and air vents. Only after this escape, you’ll step into the world of Pandora. I was taken with the game early on and enjoyed exploring and the first few missions all the way up to making my bond with my Ikran (a large, dragon-like aerial predator native to Pandora). I liked that you could choose a name for your mount, and I quickly decided that Carol was perfect for my needs.
I loved this mission as it was an excellent showcase of what the game does well: its verticality and traversal. This also holds true for the game’s flight sections, which are also very good. Controlling the character is excellent, and the increase in height perspective from a typical FPS game also feels good. Climbing and jumping are handled remarkably well and should have been the feature that the game was based on. Alongside your Ikran, you’ll also use horse-like mounts called Direhorse. There are no names for these, but it’s handled well all the same.
This mission is backed up with a fantastic musical score and finishes with the player taking flight and seeing the world in all its glory. It’s a brilliant section of the game that I’d highly recommend people to experience. Unfortunately, not long after, the game became over-reliant on systems and mechanics that I didn’t enjoy, and many joyless missions followed.
I don’t know who thought a gear system would be needed in this game; not only that, it’s a system that seems to be deployed entirely to force you to go and complete side missions in the game. The game can be played in co-op, but for a primarily story-based single-player game, it just annoyed me and didn’t add to my experience. Searching the world for RDA facilities to take down was fun…the first few times, but after base 3 or 4, I was bored and wanted nothing more to do with them.
Between the loot and the crafting system, which you will need to use to improve your character level, you need to pick up a lot of gear and items. You’ll also need to manage your inventory by contributing found items to clans to increase their favour. This, in turn, lets you get better gear and crafting recipes for even higher-rated gear for your character. It’s all just a bit soulless and lacks any natural progression.
The combat also has ups and downs; using the bow feels terrific, but I’m not sure there was a need for three different types of bows. The gunplay, however, is a letdown, at least until later in the game with the higher-level weapons.
Avatar is another game that makes excellent use of the DualSense controller. The haptic support in-game makes the weapons feel much better than on other controllers; I jumped between that and an Xbox controller during my 30ish hours with the game. Only going back to Xbox because I need to be plugged in to get full feature support on the DualSense, DAMM YOU SONY.
I hope you like mini-games, or to be specific, the one mini-game you do to unlock electronic circuit boards, as you’ll see it a lot. They try adding bits to it as the game continues, but I was fed up with it when the credits rolled.
To be fair to the game, the last handful of missions pulled me back into the game (after I had levelled up enough to complete them) as they built to a great showcase as the battle grew and became more epic in scale. The story also made more sense by that point and finally made me care more about the player character and the relationships they had built; it was just a shame it took so long to do that.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is very much a game of two halves; it features some really slow sections that are a pain to get through and some beautiful moments brought to life in a world that is incredible to explore and see in motion. Unfortunately, the game did not need to be as big in scale as it is, and it harms the overall experience. Avatar could have been so much better if the developers had just held back on trying to add every mechanic they could think of.
-Couchy