Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Review

Farcry, but on Pandora?

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Platform: PS5 Xbox X|S PC

Reviewed on: PC

Developer: Massive Entertainment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Release: December 7, 2023

Time Played: 30 Hours

Genre: Action-Adventure

ESRB: T

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, a new chapter in the Avatar series, is an open world game that will take you through the beautiful expanses of Pandora from a first person perspective. This is a very big game, easily taking at least twenty hours to get through, but before you play it, you’ll want to know what your getting into, allow me to give you an overview of the game followed by my own personal thoughts and ratings, ultimately placing this game somewhere on the shelves behind me.

Where it starts

Kidnapped at a young age by the RDA, you play a Na’vi who is being taught how to read and use human tools, until a revolution against the RDA starts and you find yourself outside in the world of Pandora, a dangerous planet where the majority of plants and animals will attack you onsite. You’ll need to make friends, fight RDA, and most importantly, learn what it means to be Na’vi.

Can the kids watch

The game can be violent at times with all the fighting going on, but it’s not graphic. The enemy characters will throw out some curse words here and there but nothing over the top. This game is gorgeous and makes for some good entertainment with the bright colors and cool looking wildlife. I would let my kids hang out and watch while I played.

Character Creation

When you get to start playing the game you will have to create your own Na’vi. You get to pick from a variety of faces, hair, and other skin designs, along with two different body types and three voices. It is a first person game so you won’t be looking at yourself a whole lot, but it’s fun to create something unique to your particular tastes. If you feel like you don’t like something about your character there are stations available that you can use to change anything about your appearance.

Na’Vi Sense

One of the most important things about being Na’vi is sensing the world around you, to pin point hazards or points of interest. It changes the color of different things in the area like quest spots or different plants and animals. On the default settings I had a hard time finding some things, I ended up having to go into the settings and adjust some of the colors. It seemed like the colors of the world would combine with what I was looking for, basically turning it invisible using the Na’vi sense.

Traversing the Forest

You will be playing a ten-foot-tall Navi, running around fighting RDA. Your body is perfectly adapted to utilize the planet to move around in a timely manner. After learning a little bit about the different plants, you will be able to reach new heights and distances. Between vines you can use to climb or the gas spit out by plants that make Navi move faster there will always be a path to your next destination.

Stopping pollution

The RDA’s sole purpose on Pandora is to suck out all resources like precious metals or oil, polluting everything around them. You’ll find rotted plants and ground in the areas around an RDA facility, unable to grab any resources until the pollution is gone. Depending on the type of machinery there you’ll have a few tasks to accomplish, ultimately destroying the machines and bringing life back to the surrounding land. As you clean up the pollution around the world you’ll be giving new wildlife opportunity to survive, changing Pandora for the better.

Stealth

Some of the bigger RDA facilities will be packed with baddies to worry about. You could go in guns blazing, but they will be calling in reinforcements making for a long drawn out fight. It’s much easier to use your stealth skills to get through. You’ll be able to see all the enemies and mark them with your Na’vi sense so you can sneak in and out without being seen. If you can manage to destroy everything you need to without being noticed you’ll get more rewards at the end.

Character Level

As you play through the game quests will get harder, recommending a certain level needed to get through. Your level will be decided on how many skill points you’ve spent and how effective your gear is. You can’t grind it out either, skill points are only given after completing missions or finding hidden plants, and the gear has to be found or crafted, and you won’t be able to craft the best stuff until you have a higher level.

Na’Vi Gear

In order to survive the dangerous wilds of Pandora you’ll have to equip yourself with clothes and weapons, as well as modifications for each piece. The gear will have different levels of rarity and looks, some very human looking armor and some that is very Na’vi. Thankfully if you find an upgrade, but don’t like how it looks, there is an option to change how any of your clothes appear so you don’t have to walk around all mismatched. You can find gear in baskets, rewarded from quests, bought from merchants, or even make them yourself, given you have the recipe.

Crafting

Surviving the wilds requires a little self-reliance, involving finding useful materials and putting them together to make gear, ammo, or food. Ammo for your bows can be made on the spot, and quickly considering you may have to do it in the middle of a fight, but food and gear require a specific crafting station. To craft a piece of gear you’ll first need to receive a recipe, usually as a reward or from merchants. If you have the patience to hunt down the best materials, you can make some amazing pieces of equipment that will add a lot to your overall level.

Hunting & Gathering

A necessity in Avatar would be the hunting and gathering of materials needed to make better gear or some food to keep your energy up. When looking at the recipe for a piece of equipment it will let you know what materials are needed to make it, then you can look at your hunting guide to find what material you want, and it will tell you where to find it. Then you look at the map and find the area you need to go to. A little complicated but well worth the effort.

Small Annoyances

A couple things I wish I could have turned of would be having to watch the picking of plants or cooking food. There was a small mini game involved with picking plants, requiring you to grab something, and move your hand in a certain direction to smoothly pull it. If you pull in the wrong direction too hard it lowers the rarity of the material. And when cooking food you have to listen to your character hum while putting the dish in the oven to cook every time. It’s not long, but I still lost my patience a time or two.

Collectibles

Along with the giant map will be special points of interest to hunt down. When traveling near one a bright circle would start to form in the middle of the camera to help point you in the right direction, they will also show up on the map for easy retrieval later, if you got close enough. The collectibles are special plants that give skill points, or some special gear rewards, and some places that help expand the past of your character.

Final Thoughts
When I first tried this game, I thought it would be like a Farcry adventure on Pandora. But I got disappointed quickly. The crafting was difficult to understand, and everything in the forest wanted to kill me, which made it tough to enjoy. After about six hours, though, I started to like the game. So, if you can push through the tricky start, you’ll probably enjoy it too.

Due to my computer setup I had to play on the lowest settings. But that didn’t ruin the game for me. The places still looked really nice, with all the bright colors and lights on the plants and animals. There were some problems, like things not showing up right or grassy hills in the distance looking like big rocks, but they weren’t a big deal.

The story was okay, but I’m not sure about the characters. Some of them were too predictable, and they didn’t change much by the end. Overall, the story felt kind of average.

Running around the Pandora forests and flying on my Ikran was fun. Seeing the planet from down low or up high was amazing. The way you move in the game is good. But the fighting was a bit plain. It wasn’t easy, but it felt basic. There were lots of weapons with different shots, but it didn’t make me think too much. Just shoot and hide in every combat situation.

I finished the game after playing for almost 30 hours, and I skipped over half of the extra stuff you can do. The game is huge with lots to do, but I don’t see a reason to play it again. There aren’t any big choices in the story, and you can eventually change your characters appearance. I liked going through the game once, especially after I figured out how to hunt and gather. I spent a long time going everywhere, finding the best stuff to make cool gear. I didn’t even max out some skills, so my gear could have been better.

Outro

And, without further ado, lets compile all these thoughts into numbers.

Visuals are getting a four

The story is a three

Gameplay felt like a three as well

Replayability is low coming it at one

The overall enjoyment I got came out to a solid four

Giving Avatar Frontiers of Pandora dead even 3 out of five.

Meaning it belongs right there on the Mid Shelf.

If you really want to enjoy the game, you will have to power through the start before it really starts to open up. The first couple days I played I wasn’t so sure I would recommend the game, but by the end I was really enjoying myself and it felt like it was worth the purchase.