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The new Avatar game is basically Far Cry on an alien planet...and that kind of rules

17K View2023-12-12

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

9.0

ActionFirst-PersonAdventureOpen World

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SHOULD I PLAY AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA?

Yes! If you’ve enjoyed either of the two movies released so far in James Cameron’s epic sci-fi film franchise, then Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is well worth checking out. And even if you didn’t dig the movies, there’s a good chance you’ll find something to like with this video game adaptation, which tells its own story set on the same world and incorporates a lot of traditional Ubisoft open-world gameplay. The result is something that feels similar to a Far Cry game, except it’s set on a gorgeous alien world, and you get to play as a really tall cat-person who can double-jump. In other words, it’s great.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve spent somewhere between ten and fifteen hours with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora so far, but as you might have come to expect from a Ubisoft open-world game, that seems to be just scratching the surface of what’s on offer here. I’ve spent an awful lot of my time just exploring the colorful forests and gloomy swamps of Pandora, gathering materials for cooking and crafting, and completing lots of sidequests to learn more about this world and its people, the big blue aliens known as Na’vi. If achievements are anything to go by, I’m only about ten percent into the game, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s even less, given that I’ve only completed a handful of main story quests.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA?

• Exhilarating exploration and mobility. Pandora is a lovely place to get to know, but what really makes Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora hum is how smooth it feels to get around. While checking down a list of map icons may feel like a Far Cry game, Na’vi have much faster, more nimble movement than the human protagonists of that series. Running through the grass and clambering up trees and vines felt like I was doing parkour at times, especially when I was able to find a really great line of plants that gave my character a speed boost.

• The double-jump. I know I mentioned it already, but speaking of Avatar’s movement abilities, let’s give a round of applause to the double-jump. Ubisoft made the incredibly wise choice of having the double-jump be the very first special ability that the player character unlocks after getting out into the world, and it instantly makes exploration so much more fun. Ubisoft, if you’re reading this, please put a double-jump in the next Far Cry, thank you. Actually, the next Assassin’s Creed too, while we’re talking about it.

Heck, let’s just put a double-jump in everything!

• An astoundingly beautiful world. If there’s one element of the movies that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora absolutely nails, it’s the spectacle of this incredible alien world. Ubisoft’s vision of Pandora is so wonderful to look at, especially during the nighttime, when the flowers and trees light up and glow in a way that feels downright magical. Since most of Pandora is taken up by overgrown nature, I sometimes struggled to get my bearings and navigate without easy-to-spot landmarks. But the more I played, the more I figured out some of the subtle, smart ways that the game signposts areas of interest, such as big banners with Na’vi paint hanging near smaller settlements. I haven’t had this much fun just spending time in a virtual world and learning all its secrets since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

• No poorly plotted moral ambiguity. The Far Cry games are plenty of fun, but if there’s one element of them that I’ve grown really bored with, it’s the focus on forced moral ambiguity that never feels well-developed. These are games where most of the mechanics are built around murdering legions of faceless “bad guys” with guns, but then they want to have these moments that make the player question if maybe they’re the real bad guy. That could work—it got close in Far Cry 3—but it rarely feels earned.

Thankfully, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has no need for morally gray nonsense. You play as a Na’vi, a son or daughter of these nature-attuned natives, and your enemies are primarily reprehensible humans who are looking to pollute the planet and massacre your people. Will you kill a lot of those humans? Sure. Will the game make you feel bad about it? No way, or at least not as far as I’ve seen.

The game adds the lightest tinge of complexity with the twist that the player character and their friends were actually raised by humans in a military program, and there’s plenty of politicking with different Na’vi clans, some of whom don’t want to team up with the good-guy humans who are rebelling. Those elements lend the plot some intrigue without forcing it down the path of so many of Ubisoft’s open-world games—that is, the path of trying to make the player feel bad for taking part in the carnage that the game freely offers up.

• Sidequest variety. Another way that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora sets itself apart from the Far Cry games is through a system of sidequests that offer a bit more variety than I expected. Instead of quests being focused around going to a location and killing people, a lot of them have more depth. One older Na’vi at a settlement I visited asked me to collect a few specific high-quality ingredients so he could show me how to cook a special dish that would teach me about my long-lost clan. Another had me seeking out a human who’d been spotted hanging out by themselves, and while I expected it to end in combat, instead I discovered a love letter written by a yearning rebel ally in a particularly beautiful spot. Each of these quests gave me new insight into some of the game’s characters, the Na’vi way of life, or the flora and fauna of Pandora.

• Investigation gameplay. Another great element of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is the use of investigating scenes to progress quests. These aren’t particularly complicated mysteries—generally I had to locate anywhere from four to eight clues scattered around an area, and then choose which clues connected with each other to reveal a logical story about what had happened there. Still, though, it’s a great way to break up the more intense moments of combat and platforming, and it shows off the player character’s drive to understand things rather than just be a merciless killing machine.

• Minimal connection to the movies but true to their spirit. This could be counted as a positive or negative, depending on your point of view, but I’m going with the former. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora takes place during the events of both of the current Avatar films, but it’s happening on a different continent of the planet. So while events and characters from the movies are referenced—expect to hear the name Jake Sully a lot—the game isn’t stuck retreading the exact same plot points. To me, it’s the best of both worlds: an adaptation that successfully captures the tone of the movies but gets to expand on the lore and tell its own tale.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA?

• It’s still a Ubisoft open-world game, with everything that entails. Dozens of hours of gameplay just to reach the end? Yes. A huge map full of icons to find and mop up if you want to be a completionist? Yep. Already a season pass available for purchase with plans for multiple DLC packs? You know it. Obviously this formula works great for a lot of people, but if you happen to be burnt out on it, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora may not change your mind.

• The combat is fine but not amazing. I loved almost everything about Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s gameplay, but the combat I would say more that I simply tolerated. Whether using a bow or a shotgun stolen from RDA troops, I found that attacking enemies felt kind of squishy and unsatisfying. The game also allowed me to use stealth while infiltrating RDA bases, but that rarely worked out well for me. To be fair, I’m bad at stealth in Far Cry games too, but still. At least the combat isn’t terribly challenging on the normal difficulty setting, so even when things devolved into chaos, I was able to hold my own.

• Small bugs and visual glitches. I ran into some minor technical issues while playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Most notably, it sometimes took a long time for full graphical details to load in, so I would enter a cutscene where certain background elements or logos on shirts were just blurry pixels. I also experienced some rare but powerful frame rate slowdown. That said, I was playing on a fairly old midrange PC on medium settings, so the fact that it ran as smoothly as it did and with zero crashes is worthy of praise.