The first thing I noticed when jumping into the game was how much of its control scheme and gameplay mechanics feel transplanted from Ubisoft’s long-running open-world series. I can pull back a bow similarly, or sprint forward to clamber up platforms in ways that feel almost identical. You can’t shake the similarities, so much so that it wouldn’t be a stretch to label Frontiers of Pandora as a licensed side project, one that takes an existing universe and applies the Far Cry model to it.

The Na'vi, a race of blue-skinned gigantic humanoids indigenous to Pandora, have always been crucial to the lore surrounding Avatar . Their conflict with the RDA is what drives the entire plot, but it is still a story about humans. The original film's protagonist started as a human, even if he ended up preferring his Na'vi body (the titular "avatar"), and he had several human allies that made up the core c

However, it turns out The Way of Water is not the only opportunity fans will have to revisit the alien landscape this year. Ubisoft has finally revealed their upcoming game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora , an open-world adventure that promises free exploration of Cameron's iconic world . The trailer and gameplay reveal can only show so much, but there are some fascinating details that can be uncovered about just what fans can expect from this exciting g

You can perform tricks and spins with the ikran mounts in the air, and they'll even have customizations. When riding your mount, there's an interesting shift in perspective. You tame the direhorse or ikran in the first person, but the perspective automatically switches to the third person as you r

The depth of these reactive pieces of the environment might still be a bit vague but the demonstrations given so far are exciting. Certain flowers that players come across appear to react to their presence immediately. During the daytime, this may be as simple as blooming but at night the interactions can become incredibly complex light shows. The presence of these complex systems in Avatar 2 is likely, but their execution in a playable game is incredi

After the reveal, everyone's initial thoughts turned to Far Cry , one of Ubisoft's biggest series, and there are a few reasons why. Ubisoft tends to stick to its formula when it comes to game design, and what carries over here are the FPS design and the RDA facilities you need to destroy, akin to liberating enemy outposts in the Far Cry ga

The basic overview of the story so far is that you were a young Na'vi taken from your family by a villainous RDA member named John Mercer to turn against your people and adapt to human ways of life. You eventually escape and slowly need to readapt to your Na'vi culture, allying with clans and taking on the RDA's destruction of the environment. Similar to Jake Sully, you're perceived as an outsider and need to earn the Na'vi's tr

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora ** __ ** marks Ubisoft's foray into the world of James Cameron's Avatar , and the game seems to have picked the perfect protagonist for this journey. Originally announced in 2017, this title by Ubisoft subsidiary Massive Entertainment has, like the Avatar sequel films, spent a long time gestating. Pandora is a planet teeming with alien flora and fauna, and creating that environment in an open-world scale is a demanding task. Now that the game's release is actually on the horizon burning shores, details like the playable character and narrative are becoming clear for the first t

Although the game's namesake is the planet of Pandora, it would be fascinating to take a look at the state of our home planet during the time period in which it's set. How rough is the Earth's condition at this point? Is there any sympathy to be had for humans looking for a new home, or have they overreached and drained the planet of its resources, moving on to Pandora with the hopes of treating it in a similar man

That said, if Frontiers of Pandora is anything to go by, the RDA did not take defeat well. Fifteen years later, it appears they're back in full force, probably wanting payback after the events of the movie. From the looks of things, they've even expanded their operations on Pandora. The player will naturally learn how to fight the RDA and their machines, being able to lay waste on everything from mech suits to helicopt

The most significant bit of lore introduced in The Way of Water is arguably the existence of tribes outside the forest Na'vi from the first film. Jake Sully and his family are forced to take refuge with the water Na'vi, learning their ways and customs as they attempt to blend

Which isn’t a bad idea, and Avatar’s range of exploration and combat fits snugly into the blueprint, especially when you are on the side of one faction vying for territory against another. You’ll take over outposts by completing some pedestrian objectives, or save wildlife from patrolling grunts while exploring the world. There are also resources to gather, locals to help with everyday problems, and discoveries around which are designed much like modern Assassin’s Creed games. Although, most of these were already taken care of in the portion of the world I was allowed to explore, so it was hard to get an accurate idea of what moment-to-moment gameplay would be like aside from scripted missions. It wasn’t ideal, but Pandora remains a gorgeously massive place.