Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Review - Opening Pandora's Box

The world of Pandora has been a place people have yearned to visit for a decade and a half. While gamers got a chance to visit it in 2009s video game movie tie-in it's only this year that the world of Pandora is open to explore in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, was it worth the wait?

In Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora you take on the role of a Na'vi that was stolen from the Sarentu tribe as a child and raised as a human by the military on Pandora. 

Almost a decade after the battle of the Hallelujah Mountains, the first movie's events, the protagonist is revived from cryosleep and is immediately pulled into a war between the military and a resistance consisting of Humans, Avatars, and the Na'vi.

Cookie Cutter Story

For the rest of the game, you spend time working to visit and rally the different Na'vi tribes to the call of the resistance, take out military outposts to reduce pollution in the world, and interact with the different flora and fauna of the world.

I was very excited when first starting up the game. The idea of a story following a "stolen generation" of Na'vi was something I was extremely interested in. What would the world of Pandora be to a Na'vi who hasn't interacted with it before and how would they be treated by the local tribes?

Unfortunately, we don't get to explore any of that. Not only does practically every Na'vi you meet welcome you with open arms but the tribe you came from, the Sarentu, are a practically mythical race known for their ability to rally others and have canonical 'main character energy.'

Instead, we get a story of man, err Na'vi, against a tyrannical military presence in a large open-world situation leading a resistance to take down a dictator. If you're a fan of the usual Far Cry story beats then you'll enjoy this plot.

The core combat gameplay loop is rooted in stealth. Whether you're infiltrating enemy bases or approaching a new alien species eyeing its hide you'll find even if you're at the correct difficulty level for your equipment it's a death sentence to be outnumbered.

Stealthy weapons include your Long Bow, Heavy Bow, and Short Bow, each offering variations of draw speed, distance, and power. Once you've been spotted and backup has been called it's time to swap to heavy stealth. Your Assault Rifle and Shotgun will turn humans into paste, and there are even Rocket Launchers hidden around some bases that you can use as temporary weapons.

Stealth Saves The Day

The stealth element of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was certainly the height of the experience. Each base had multiple points you needed to interact with to deactivate it and with your Na'vi vision, you could plan your entry around the marked locations of foes.

When I first started the game it was a bit laughable that three hits from a wooden arrow would take out a massive mech suit, but as your range of options expanded so did the fun I was having. It got to the point that I'd be clearing out massive bases with that same bow and a hacking tool to stun the mechs.

The responses of enemies that would catch your attention were frustrating one second, and then baffling the next. Mechs with mortar cannons strapped to their backs will manage to nail you with pinpoint precision, while other mechs seem to stand in place and dance at you aggressively.

Gear Score Makes Side-Quests Negligible

One of the strangest mechanics to implement into Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was the gear system. There's no experience, or static upgrades based on pelts to improve your character. Instead, the aim is to gather weapons and armor with higher numbers.

There are mechanics around obtaining better gear from crafting new gear from the flora and fauna of Pandora, but by simply progressing through the main story missions you'll be handed gear that's likely far better than anything you could create on your own.

Early on I learned that side-quests and hunting would either reward me with nothing other than additional narrative moments, or objects that might be able to craft something a few points above my current total. This de-incentivising of side content was a consistent theme throughout the game.

Each gathered ingredient also has conditions that can make it better or worse such as a humane kill, or if moss is collected in a place that's sheltered by the wind. The score difference between perfectly obtained materials and those that you mangled is negligible, making it not worth the time to seek out those conditions.

I'm the type of player who would explore all points of interest and complete every side quest before moving on to the next story mission. I found myself completing story missions until I was a sizable gear level ahead and then went back to quickly mop up quests I hadn't completed.

Having completed minimal side-quests and barely crafting items I was able to complete Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora meeting the recommended gear level. If I had crafted and completed more quests I am confident I would have still ended up with the same gear.

Beauties of Pandora

Massive Entertainment has done an excellent job of creating a Pandora that looks great. Plants react like their silver screen counterparts, bioluminescence creates gorgeous underwater scenes, and soaring in the skies on your Ikran you can watch clouds drift through floating rocks.

What really hurts how beautiful it looks, is just how empty it feels. Regularly I'd find myself running for 5+ minutes of forest and wouldn't even encounter any of the sparse wildlife. It felt like an event stumbling into a Scarab Crawler.

Pandora was also negatively impacted by the frequent use of fog and haze making the landscape blurry and illegible, and the Na'vi vision - which can be used to highlight interactable flora and fauna - adding another level of distortion to your view. 

For every beautiful vista I got to gaze upon, three blurry forest swamps made me feel like vaseline had been smeared across my screen.

PC Performance Woes

Most tragic of all was just how many performance issues I came up against during my 20+ hours with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

I found quickly that even on the Medium graphical settings my computer, with a 3070 and 12th gen i7, I was experiencing consistent frame drops. What worried me further was that these stutters would continue even on low settings to the point where my visuals would completely lock up.

These lock-ups were especially bad in the middle of combat or when traversing perilous cliffs. More than once the entire game locked up for 10+ seconds only to flicker back to life on a game over screen. I guess while I wasn't able to see what was going on the gameplay was continuing.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Review | Final Thoughts

I had an extremely poor time playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. From the cookie-cutter 'resistance vs military' storyline looping for each Na'vi tribe before a lackluster finale, to the consistent technical hiccups I was constantly fighting against it.

So many activities have been put into the game such as side quests, hunting, and crafting, however, the progression system and story rewards allow you to skip them to absolutely no detriment entirely.

If you're looking for a sparse open world to run around, tackle some military bases, and soar through the skies you might get some enjoyment out of Far Cry: Pandora, but anyone hoping for a deep Avatar experience will want to pass.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was reviewed on PC via Ubisoft Connect with a code from the publisher over roughly 20 hours of gameplay. All screenshots in this review were taken by the reviewer during gameplay.