Though the next Avatar sequels are still many years away, Ubisoft is taking you back to the Na'vi's home moon with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora . This series from James Cameron is one of the most visually stunning pieces of science-fiction film, and the studio behind Star Wars Outlaws , Massive Entertainment, is now adapting the universe into an equally gorgeous new g
The trailer reveals that the story campaign has the option for a single-player story experience or an online multiplayer adventure with your friend. This is narrated over a clip of two Na'vi characters flying together on ikrans by the Hallelujah Mounta
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora comes from Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment, a developer known for co-op multiplayer titles that previously helmed Tom Clancy's The Division third-person multiplayer shooter games, and they're bringing a bit of that into Frontiers. Massive also developed Far Cry 3 , so that's probably where those influences come
Analyzing the reveal trailer, it seems that Frontiers of Pandora will be about exploring the planet as an Avatar and won't be about following the RDA. Without guns to play with, the best possible comparison is most likely Far Cry Primal , which actually didn’t have any microtransactions and only one DLC pack. Still, the Ubisoft title had opportunities to monetize with weapons and clothing cosmetics - it might just have seemed out of place in the prehistoric sett
Maps in expansive story-based open-world games like Frontiers of Pandora have multiple games worth of content spread out across the world, and players may want to skip past flying to their questline’s destination. It’s not common, but a system that trades premium currency for the ability to warp to new locations could be integrated into Frontiers of Pandora to bridge the gap between these massive biomes. While it's likely that cosmetics for these vehicles and animals will be locked behind microtransactions, there's a real chance that the transport itself will be restricted as w
Ubisoft has a strong interest in open-world games that borders on obsession, so much so that gamers were ready to believe that the Splinter Cell remake would be open-world , despite the fact that Splinter Cell has no real business being so. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with open-world design, but Ubisoft franchises like Assassin's Creed are routinely poked fun at for having remarkably rote and predictable exploration elements that boil down to following endless map markers and scaling towers. Indeed, this approach to making open-world games has reached a point of parody, especially in the age of critically acclaimed games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring , which have received praise for rejecting these Ubisoft-style open-world tre
However, it too had a noticeable drawback, and that was a lack of general combat encounters. Across those four main missions we completed, assaulting that base was the only time we ever really drew a bow or a gun for combat purposes. We could hunt a few creatures while exploring Pandora, but that was using a bow to get good shots similar to how Assassin's Creed 3 handles hunting . Even looting the animal leads to the main character saying a few words in commemoration and thanks. Yet, we only encountered one very small and short combat encounter when exploring the world, leading to it feeling like there's a lot of downtime and not allowing the combat to live up to its sheer potential. It could be the full Licensed Game Adaptations is different, but this sequence of missions and areas did lean more heavily into exploration than its com
In the movie, the primary antagonist was the Resources Development Administration (RDA), a mega-corporation that specialized in exploiting other worlds' resources. Their interest in Pandora was motivated by a desire for unobtainium, a rare mineral that is worth a fortune on Earth, and this is what sets the main conflict in motion. The RDA proved to be ruthless, having an entire army at its disposal under the command of Colonel Quaritch. The final battle ended with them being forced to leave, with the exception of a few open-minded individu
She does, however, have an unusual background. This character was part of an RDA project that involved kidnapping Na'vi children and raising them to become soldiers that fight against their own people. This puts the player in an interesting position . On the one hand, she is fully equipped to take on Pandora's wilderness, but on the other, she has to learn alongside the pla
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an action-adventure game rather than a full MMORPG, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be microtransactions. Ubisoft has a history of over-monetizing its games, with Far Cry 6 being a recent example of mostly single-player games that suffered from online stores and premium currencies. There’s nearly no doubt that for even a single-player experience, there will be monetization available in Frontiers of Pando
