During a closed-door presentation at the Summer Games Festival, Ubisoft showed off the game for the first time to a group of reporters. Avatar: Pandora’s FrontierAnnounced in 2017, the first-person action-adventure game was originally slated for a 2022 release (probably originally aimed to coincide with James Cameron’s Avatar: Way of Water), but was pushed back to 2023. Specifically, December 7, 2023. From what we’ve seen so far, the delay was worth it; the game is gorgeous and fun, and truly evokes a Pandora fantasy/sci-fi feel–even if the core formula at the heart of the game is basically just a Far Cry rip-off.
Like, there are so many similarities to Far Cry that it’s impossible to watch the trailer without drawing the line between them. You can play the entire game, like Far Cry, in single-player or two-player co-op. You can use human weapons and go into battle loud and aggressive like Far Cry, or use Navi weapons for a more stealthy and quieter approach like Far Cry. You need to liberate areas from large military personnel to free up the map and advance through the game, like Far Cry. You can get a pet to help you in battle, like in Far Cry. do you see what i mean? It’s not cynical to make this link.
But there are some changes — it’s Ubisoft Massive making this game, after all, and this part of the Ubisoft family hasn’t made a Far Cry game before. The most interesting deviation from the Far Cry formula is how you need to be specific about the flora you collect when roaming the western landmass of Pandora; simply running around and collecting everything provides less reward. To really evoke Navi’s respect for nature, Drew Rechner (associate game director) told us that you need to “pay attention to the natural flora and only take what you need” – this will give you better ingredients and allow you to cook better food Or upgrade your gear more efficiently.
See, I love Far Cry. I think Far Cry 3 through Far Cry 5 are great – taking away the formula from cultists, separatist nation-states and terrorists could be a good thing, and the world of Pandora certainly has a lot to offer. Everything Massive did to the engine also played a part; the project looks stunning. On the one hand, I’d love to customize my Navi and head out into the forest, carefully skirting the bioluminescent plants, and befriending all the quirky little ones who call this planet home.
Created as “a Navi with a complicated past full of mystery”, you were kidnapped at a young age and trained as a weapon by humans to use against your kin. During the events of Avatar 1, you were rescued from your human captors and put into a cryogenic sleep, and the game’s story doesn’t begin until you wake up during the events of Avatar 2. This means you were born on Pandora but raised by the RDA – you know about human weapons, human machines and human minds. But you’ll need to reconnect to Pandora and discover your way to Navi; it’s the perfect setup for a game that wants to deliver a “vivid, immersive Pandora.”
John Mercer is the big bad guy in this game: the leader of the RDA leads the humans’ scheme to kidnap and abuse Navi children, and Ubisoft has done a good job of making him a villain you won’t hesitate to beat. You know, like what the publisher did with the villains in Far Cry. I imagine you’ll be working your way through various areas of the open world – we saw dense forests and a secret tribe, floating islands and grassy foothills – in order to gather the necessary troops to launch an assault on the RDA and hold them off forever.
Game looks fine. If you don’t like Far Cry or Avatar, there’s nothing here for you – I don’t think Frontiers of Pandora will rewrite the rulebook for open-world Ubisoft games. But it’s beautiful, and James Cameron and his team have been working with Massive to make it more than a cynical license-cash. It’s a fitting extension of the Avatar property, a way for the director himself to “tell new stories with new technology.”
So I’m still interested. It lives and dies by how Avatar: Pandora’s Frontier feels in your hand while you’re playing it — which we haven’t had a chance to experience yet. If I were a gamer though, I guess it would feel like Far Cry. This is not a bad thing.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a first-person action-adventure open world, launching December 7 on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.