Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Review

The Avatar franchise has been generating some buzz again since 2022 with the long-awaited sequel of the 2009 movie that took the world by storm. The tale of the Na’vi versus the destructive tendencies of the human race on the surface of Pandora was the perfect foundation for an interesting and epic adventure story. Now, with the franchise having planned three more movies in the future, it seemed like the perfect time to release another Avatar game with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Right off the bat, Pandora has never looked so beautiful in an Avatar game, but sadly the gameplay came with a lot of rough edges.

Story

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora takes place in the same universe as the two Avatar movies. In the game, you’ll be playing as one of the Na’vi children from the Sarentu tribe that the RDA abducted when they were still very young. You are taught to act as ambassadors for the RDA and the Na’vi, even though you clearly know something feels off, as the RDA keeps treating you like second-rate living beings. When the RDA is driven back, from the events that occur in the first movie, you, and the rest of the Sarentu children are put in suspended sleep in cryogenic pods in order to stay safe. When you awaken several years later, the RDA is back, and they are out to kill you. What then follows is a story of the Sarentu children reconnecting with the other Na’vi, while also working together with the resistance forces of the so-called sky people, trying to keep the RDA at bay.

The story is presented via a lot of dialogues and it progresses at a steady pace. Some dialogues didn’t have that much substance, but the overall narrative is good enough to keep pressing onwards. The main story remains fairly interesting throughout the length of the game, but the side missions feel very hollow at times.

Graphics

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a beautiful game, for the most part. While we were never under the impression that our PS5 was pushed to its limits, we did encounter quite a few breathtaking views. Often, when we found ourselves climbing mountains, we took our time to enjoy the backdrops. The overall green and lush planet of Pandora is quite attractive, even if the same plants are repeated ad nauseam. The same can be said about the Na’vi and the Sky People, who recycle the same characters constantly as well, with the Na’vi often only having a few different outfits, haircuts, and markings to diversify them.

While running around on the surface of Pandora is quite entertaining, we did encounter a lot of graphical bugs and glitches. For example, when shooting some of the local wildlife, and when hitting the leaves of certain plants, they would completely glitch out. We have encountered quite a few NPCs who had their head stuck in a wall, to then have complete conversations with them while being in that position. Even though we didn’t really encounter any game-breaking issues, all these annoying little bugs do break the overall immersion.

Sound

The sound design is great. You’ll be treated to a very cinematic soundtrack that would fit right at home in the movies, and the voice acting is also of high quality. While some dialogues may hold little to no substance, the voice cast does a formidable job bringing their respective characters to life. The sound effects are also decent, and they provide proper feedback for the onscreen action.

Gameplay

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a first-person action-adventure game much in the same vein as Ubisoft’s Far Cry series. This means you’ll be dropped into an open-world environment where you’ll be able to explore at your leisure, while also gathering materials, crafting items, and delving into side content whenever you see fit. The offset is quite simple, and it doesn’t take too long before you come to grips with the game’s base mechanics. Navigating the world is fairly straightforward as well, even though some areas cannot be reached until you have already made some progress. The game will also gradually unlock the items you need, such as your bow, gun, hacking tool, and so on.

The game’s combat is sometimes a bit off. For example, stealth doesn’t really work. Even when sneaking up on enemies, trying to pick them off one at a time, you’ll notice that once you engage in combat, your position will always remain known to the enemies. During every combat encounter in the game, the enemy was able to track our position, even when behind walls, in buildings, or even at a far distance. While many enemies will not immediately pursue you, they will instantly know your position if you walk into their range again, even if you approach from a completely different angle or even altitude. This feels like very faulty and poor programming, and it made trying to play stealthily a drag and downright useless. To make matters even worse, when shooting enemy targets who are standing in exhaust fumes, next to a loud rig, they would even detect our position immediately if our arrow fell silently on the ground, not even close to them, while they had their back to it. It seems the entire programming just depends on a certain action within the enemy’s range. Sadly, the actual gunplay feels a bit rough around the edges as well.

For a game that also involves a lot of material gathering and crafting, it seems that it also tries to stop you at every single point in the game. Your starting backpack is ridiculously small, you cannot access items in your stash from crafting stations, and there is not that much to gather in the luscious jungle that envelops the entirety of Pandora. Imagine having to search for a piece of bark for half an hour in a game where the entire planet is covered in trees. Things like this feel silly, and in many ways, it feels like the developers are halting progress and the flow of the game in order to artificially make it seem like a longer experience. After a while, you’ll know quite a few hotspots to gather specific materials, which does make gathering a bit more enjoyable. Having upgrades allowing you to carry more ammo or increasing your pouch size are also very welcome additions here. The problem here is that the world feels rather empty, as there are hardly any interesting random encounters. It’s even so deserted at times, that when you take over a RDA base, it doesn’t even get filled with allied characters who make the best use of the facilities.

While the above may sound a bit disappointing, it’s still a lot fun to explore Pandora and uncover a few secrets here and there. The side content may not always have a captivating storyline, but the rewards can actually be greater than that of the main missions. It’s advised to dig into the side quests if you want to become stronger. Even so, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a fairly short game. If you focus mainly on the main objectives, you can probably beat the game in around 15 to 20 hours. The game starts off rather slow, but the moment you unlock your ikran and are able to soar through the sky, things become quite enjoyable. Navigating the world with the ikran makes things a lot more pleasant, especially if you need to reach higher ground for certain objectives.

Conclusion

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora isn’t a bad game, but it missed out on so much of its potential due to tedious gathering mechanics, rough-around-the-edges combat, and a world that may look lush and pretty but ends up being very desolate and empty. As far as open-world action-adventure games go, this one feels a bit mediocre at times, but the moment you reach the halfway mark in the story, the game does open up, making things a lot more interesting. While we wouldn’t recommend picking this one up at full price, it might be worth checking out this title when on discount.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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