It’s a good movie! Breaking new ground in the realm of visual effects while building upon the world James Cameron created in countless ways. It’s still pretty dry and predictable when it comes to storytelling and characters, but for the average joe it is more than enough for a film that provides rock solid entertainment value without inspiring much else. This brings us to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, a new open world game from Ubisoft and Massive that aims to faithfully expand upon the filmic world with new characters, mechanics, and ideas. After a couple of hours with the game though, it sure seems like a souped-up version of Far Cry .

Ubisoft's Avatar game could capitalize on these concepts by offering a wide range of rideable creatures throughout Pandora, letting you traverse the land, sea, and air easily. There's even room for more animals to be introduced in the game — after all, who knows what else lurks in the mysterious planet's environm

Magnus Jansen: It's a great question or a train of thought, because this was something that was very important to us from the start. Because starting out, it's no secret if you know anything about video games history that when that movie-licensed video games or any licensed video game can be - it can turn out bad if you're just looking for a quick cash grab or just a quick thing. And I'm super happy to say now, especially back then when we started, that in the first meetings with Lightstorm, James Cameron's production company, it was super clear that they did not want to do that, a bad game or a quick, "Let's just you redo the movie and so Hollywood hopefully can get some mon

I recently popped down to Ubisoft’s offices just outside of London and was thrown into the multicoloured forests and floating cliffs of Pandora to do whatever I liked. There were some missions to follow as part of the preview build, but otherwise I spent two hours killing fascist military dudes, saving local inhabitants, and flying my Ikran - who I called Floof - high into the sky in search of new discoveries. There is a sense of wonder not dissimilar to the films, like you are discovering the world for the first time as a fledgling Na’vi who must also earn stripes within a tribe that has every reason not to trust them. On the surface this setting is ideal for an open-world game offering untold freedom and experimentation, but Frontiers of Pandora relies too much on past victories to ever escape their uninspiring shadow.

The assault on the base was also incredibly fun, topping many of the best outposts in Far Cry games . To destroy and take over the base, there were a handful of activities throughout we had to complete. Unlike Far Cry 6 outposts where it was as simple as destroy a propanganda billboard and killing the soldiers, we had to about three different objectives to complete before ascending to hack and take over the base. It's uncertain if every outpost operates the same way, but contextually, it wouldn't make a lot of sense unless they were all oil rigs. There's also a stealth option to taking over the bases, and while we tried, we didn't get far before a full-on brawl and fight for our life broke

Combat is also very easy , or it at least it was in the preview build. Human mechs that I recall taking out dozens of Na’vi in the films can be downed with three arrows or fewer than a full magazine of bullets in Frontiers of Pandora, turning outposts into a cakewalk. You are also very tall, so human enemies can be brushed aside with a light punch unless they’re hiding in the mountains or atop tall platforms aiming snipers at you. Even as a new species in a video game that could easily expand on the types of technology and weapons they have access to, Massive hasn’t done much here to take advantage of that. I can use some sort of cool launcher that can fling poisonous or explosive projectiles, but when it’s more of a chore to use than existing weapons, there wasn’t much of a point. Much of it feels uninspired.

The other thing I think that is needed to make it great is that it's got new experiences, new things, new places, new characters, new stories. Because if it's just the same characters and the same story and the same places that's in the movie, then you're not going to be surprised. You're not going to have that, "Oh my god, I haven't seen this before" jaw drop, which is I think a big part of the movies. Like, "Oh my God, I have never seen this." It's an act of pure creation. And so we needed to do new animals, and to do that, we needed new environments that they could live in. So it all ended up with a bunch of new, and that I think is what makes it so g

Game Rant recently had the chance to play Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for roughly 2.5 hours, completing four main missions, doing a sidequest or two, and exploring the lands. What's immediately clear is how much of the game is designed for exploration, as that was the most novel part of the experience, and that translates over to combat and map design as well. Indeed, Avatar frontiers Of pandora dense bone: Frontiers of Pandora eschews the typical Ubisoft formula for open-world games for something a little differ