In case you are unaware, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an upcoming open-world action-adventure video game based on James Cameron’s Avatar film series. The game is being developed by Massive Entertainment and will be published by Ubisoft for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S in the 2023–2024 fiscal year. Not much was known about the game till May 2023, but since the we’ll had like 3 trailers and seen a boom in the marketing efforts. Now, a month before it’s release, the first 2 hours of the game have been made available for media outlets for testing and previews. Therefore, today we have a summary of those previews for you guys!
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Has Familiar Far Cry Mechanics
Nearly every major outlets including IGN, The Gamer, PC Gamer, etc have reported that the game would feel quite familiar to Far Cry fans. The Direct reports, “The game it seems to share the most DNA with is Far Cry. Much of the time playing is spent hunting and gathering, crafting upgrades, and pouring over the vast skill trees, as one does in the Far Cry titles.” So it seems like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is going to be instantly recognisable to Far Cry fans, at least structure wise.
The World of Pandora
Anyone who has seen an Avatar film knows about Pandora and the beauty of the incredible world it presents. Crazy thing is that in the 2 films we’ve seen so far, it seems like we’ve just scratched the surface of Pandora. A lot more still needs to explored but the game will most likely let us explore just the world of Pandora we’ve seen in the movies so far. As reported, Frontiers of Pandora immerses gamers into this science-fiction Shangri-La as we are no longer a passive bystander of Pandora, but an active explorer. However, PC Gamer reports, “After three hours, the promise of first hand Avatar experience already feels thin. Instead of awe, Frontiers of Pandora captures the feeling of someone tugging your sleeve to say, “Look, it’s like in Avatar!”
Food, Fruits, and Hunting
Probably one of the most exciting aspects of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is to see how the Na’Vi survive in the jungle. So, of course you’ll be on a hunt for food which includes fruits, vegetables, and animals. As reported by IGN, “You need to frequently eat to ensure your health bar regenerates, so picking fruits and preparing meals with them is more central to the experience. You can also hunt, but animals must be honourably killed with a bow; shooting Pandora’s wildlife with human bullets will spoil the meat.” Apparently, gathering fruits can be a bit annoying, as it isn’t a single button-tap task. Instead gamers will have to hold the fruit and rotate the analogue stick to find the right angle to pull from, similar to a lockpicking minigame.
Jungle Parkour Is The Best Part of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Apparently, your Ikran can be summoned at any time in the game even in instances where are falling from a mountain peak and what not. As per IGN, “This is proper movie fantasy fulfilment; soaring through the skies, you’re able to weave between floating sky islands, nosedive along cliff edges, and fly into the sunset”.
Combat Mechanics in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
As you’d expect, invading humans are the enemy in Frontiers of Pandora much like the film. As per reports, there are two methods of doing so, which are using traditional Na’vi weaponry or modern RDA guns. While Na’vi bows are best suited to stealth missions and require patience, the loud human guns are for the impatient moments where you’d chose mayhem over stealth. As per IGN, “Enemy AI was so braindead they barely reacted to allies dying right next to them. Combined with simplistic encounter design, most combat situations proved trivially easy.”
Not As Many Creatures as You’d Expect
Lincoln Carpenter from PC Gamer was stunned to find “myself struggling to cross paths with any wildlife, only making a handful of sightings in my three hours of exploring. If I’m in an alien biome, I’m there for the creatures.” Apparently, in the 2 hour demo version gamers just came across a pack of viperwolves, two deer-like feline creatures, a moth that local na’vi rely on for silk, and a sort of horned, cow-like lizard creature. Although, as the game progresses, one may find a lot of creatures, it seems like you won’t find many of them in the beginning.
Therefore, so far it looks like Frontiers of Pandora is a mixed bag which has largely failed to meet various expectations of gamers in the first demo. But it feels too early to make anything of an opinion about the game yet, so its best to wait for more in-depth analysis by critics after playing majority of the game.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is all set to debut on December 7, 2023 for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.
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