Frontiers of Pandora’s Character Customization Pales in Comparison to Other 2023 Games

One of the earliest video game genres, RPGs began life as simple adaptations of tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons. As such, these games carried over a slew of tabletop mechanics to the video game world, such as getting quests from NPCs, upgrading stats, unlocking new weapons and abilities, and the ability to create and customize an original character. As the video game landscape has continued to evolve over the years, the lines defining genres have started to blur, eventually resulting in action/adventure games that contain a handful of RPG elements, just like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

After a few years in the oven, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is finally out and, while it may not be the most well-reviewed game of the year, it’s definitely a title worth checking out for any fans of James Cameron’s Avatar universe. That being said, there are plenty of nitpicks and issues with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and one of those is the game’s lackluster character creator and subsequent customization, most of which pales in comparison to other 2023 titles.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s Character Customization Could Have Been Better

Avatar’s Character Creator Lacks Meaningful Options

Obviously, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora isn’t a fully-fledged RPG, and it wouldn’t be fair to hold it to the same standards as sprawling hundred-hour epics like Baldur’s Gate 3, or even Bethesda’s Starfield. That being said, Avatar does still borrow a few major elements from the RPG genre, and if it’s in the game, its very existence invites fair criticism, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora certainly deserves some.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora‘s character creator is a tad strange. Presented to the player around 20 minutes into the game, Avatar‘s character creator functions pretty much how any RPG fan would expect it to. Players get to choose their skin color, eye color, hairstyle, and a few other cosmetic details, but while there are a good handful of options per category, the vast majority of the options themselves feel a little redundant. For instance, there are three different hair colors to choose from in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, all of which are just different shades of brown. Skin color options follow a similar pattern, giving players eight different options to choose from, but they’re all slightly different shades of blue.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora‘s character creator does offer a few options that are wholly unique to the Avatar universe, though unfortunately, they’re also quite lackluster. Players can choose from 12 different bioluminescence patterns, which determine the number and style of glow-in-the-dark dots that appear on the player character’s body at night. But the issue here is that these patterns are extremely difficult to see, especially on the character creator screen, so players don’t really get to see what they’re choosing.

Of course, there were always bound to be some restraints when it came to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora‘s character customization. Being an official part of the Avatar canon, it’s completely fair that Frontiers of Pandora doesn’t let players get too wild with their customization. An orange-skinned Na’vi with hot rod flames up its arms and body might sound cool, but it would break Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora‘s immersion pretty quickly. While that’s completely understandable, that doesn’t mean that Ubisoft couldn’t have given players some more significant options for character customization. As it stands, Frontiers of Pandora‘s character creator feels a bit pointless and tacked-on.

Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora

Developed by Massive Entertainment and set to be published by Ubisoft, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an open-world game set within James Cameron’s popular Avatar universe. The title will highlight a new region of Pandora called the Western Frontier.

Released

December 7, 2023

Genre(s)

Action-Adventure