Highlights
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora offers solid shooting mechanics and fun traversal features, including a parkour system and flight system.
- The game leans into the traditional Ubisoft open-world formula, but still puts its own twists on the genre.
- Pandora is a visually impressive and important setting in the Avatar universe, and the game captures its magic-realism and beauty, making it a standout feature.
Though it may have received a bit of a mixed critical reception, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora actually has a lot going for it, and that’s especially true for die-hard Avatar fans. Along with some solid shooting mechanics, Avatar has a slew of great traversal features including a surprisingly fun parkour system and intuitive, satisfying flight system. And while Avatar may lean into the traditional Ubisoft open-world formula a bit too much, it does still put a few twists of its own on the genre.
Ultimately, this means that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora can be a very fun game, albeit one that might end up feeling a tad repetitive 20+ hours in. But regardless of that, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora proves that Ubisoft Massive is a developer capable of making something truly impressive with a well-established IP, and that bodes very well for Star Wars Outlaws, with one Avatar feature in particular hopefully being an exciting sign of things to come. The feature in question is environmental design, as Pandora steals the show in the latest Avatar game.
How Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s Parkour Compares to Dying Light 2
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has a surprisingly fluid and fun parkour system, and it makes for an interesting comparison to Dying Light 2.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s Environmental Design Bodes Well for Star Wars Outlaws
Pandora is One of Avatar’s Biggest Highlights
In James Cameron’s Avatar movies, Pandora is essentially a character in and of itself, and is one of the most important characters at that. Much of Avatar‘s story revolves around the conservation of Pandora, and the fight to keep it safe from invaders that look to pollute the planet for their own personal gain. In an attempt to make audiences connect to Pandora in a meaningful way, James Cameron and the rest of his Avatar crew went to great lengths to ensure that the planet felt like a real place, filling it with wildlife and lush foliage.
Pandora is still one of the most visually-impressive settings in movie history. From its floating cliffs and its gigantic trees to its hanging vines and quirky plants that react in fun little ways, as well as a slew of adorable and dangerous creatures, every inch of Pandora strikes the perfect balance of fantastical and real. That’s only made better at night, when the forests of Pandora are given a striking neon-soaked bioluminescent look.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora knew just how important its setting was, and it doubles down on it in the best ways. Frontiers of Pandora is an absolutely gorgeous game, with Ubisoft Massive nailing the look of the planet from its foliage to its floating cliffs to its wildlife. Ubisoft Massive also did a great job of capturing Pandora’s magic-realism, with some excellent sound design making every footstep, leaf crunch, and Ikran screech sound exactly as it should. Every technical aspect comes together to make Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora‘s world feel just how it does in the movies, and though the game doesn’t have too much biome variety, there’s more than enough there to keep fans invested.
Ubisoft Massive Can Use The Same Expertise for Star Wars Outlaws’ Planets
But Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora isn’t the only huge AAA franchise Ubisoft Massive was working on. Star Wars Outlaws is currently set for release next year, and from what fans have seen so far, its environments could end up being a real highlight. From cold slum planets like Kijimi to lavish casino planets like Canto Bight, Star Wars Outlaws will probably take fans across the whole galaxy. From the looks of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Ubisoft Massive was probably the right choice for the job.
Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora
Developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an open-world game set within James Cameron’s popular Avatar universe. The title highlights a new region of Pandora called the Western Frontier.
- Released
- December 7, 2023
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Language, Mild Blood, Violence
- How Long To Beat
- 20 Hours
