Okay, so before I say what I’m about to say, please sit, take a deep breath, calm down and put away any stones or rotten fruit you may have. Now that that’s settled, let’s go for it:
I, Arielle, have no genuine interest in the Avatar franchise. I know, blasphemy, sacrilege, hand in my geek card, but it’s true – the trials and tribulations of the Na’Vi don’t speak to my soul.
That being said, I was excited to dive into the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora game because, mechanically and even esthetically, it was a game that seemed right up my alley.
Also, regardless of my feelings for the franchise, there is no denying the technical marvel that Avatar is, something I was excited to see translated into a modern video game.
On its surface, the Avatar franchise is just screaming to be adapted. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is Ubisoft’s second shot at getting it right after 2009’s non-canon tie that did little to set the gaming world alight.
Unlike its predecessor, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a canon Avatar story set in and around both Avatar movies. The game starts with your character, alongside some other kidnapped Na’Vi, attempting to escape from a human facility unsuccessfully.
After being placed in cryo, you are awoken fifteen years later to help fight the RDA. After this point, players are let loose into the undeniably beautiful world of Pandor, and the game begins.
Looking at the gameplay, it’s all there. You will spend your time crafting items, weapons, crafting gear and unlocking skills. However, I never once felt like it works as a game that would appeal to anyone but the most hardcore Avatar fans.
Everything to do with the gameplay feels shallow. In games like Far Cry, the gameplay loop feels rewarding and fun because of the wide variety of weapons, gear and customisations available, but here, there are only a few options, so the loop gets old and tedious fast.
And this shallowness translates to all parts of the game. Stealth is another option available to you, but instead of having to carefully and strategically plan your moves in accordance with the enemy’s vision, in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandor, you hope you’re not seen.
Enemies can spot you from across the map, where you can’t even see them, while you’re nestled deep within the foliage and then alert every hostile on the map to your exact location. It feels like an exceptional slapdash version of a stealth system and one the game would be better without.
But the real crux of the matter, the one thing I can’t get past no matter how many hours I sink into the game, is that it’s just so very, exceptionally boring.
It never feels like there is anything to do in the game, and combat is few and far between, which would be fine as long as the game made up for it in other ways, which is not the case.
Almost every quest in the game will see you do a version of going somewhere to track down someone or something: Rince and repeat. And even when there is combat, the fighting is only just okay, and no amount of trying to hype me up for it can leave me even slightly interested.
So, if the quests are tedious and the combat is dull, what else does the game have to offer? Well, hunting and then gathering, of course. However, instead of feeling meaningful and rewarding like in so many other games, in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, it’s just another thing to fill time.
For starters, your inventory will always be full. It’s just always full. And besides, almost everything you can craft is to help you fight enemies – a rare occurrence – so more often than not, I just gave up on the whole mechanic altogether, which led to an even shallower experience overall.
And finally, you have the story. Usually, I stay away from delving into the stories of games too deeply in fear of spoilers, but this time, I’m steering clear because I honestly didn’t care about a single thing or story beat throughout the game.
It’s all so incredibly weak that it’s often hard to remember that there is a story to this game. I think that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is pretty from far but far from pretty, and if this review was based on visuals alone, then I couldn’t praise the game enough.
But when there are so many games available that are just as visually striking, looking at you, Horizon, but that have the strong gameplay mechanics to back it up, I just can’t recommend that anyone sinks their earned money into Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora regardless of its undeniable beauty.
