2023-12-11 18:44:54
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One of the big releases of 2023 has been waiting a long time to go on sale, but we already have this one among us Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the promised and long-awaited video game from Ubisoft based on the well-known film franchise. If a little less than a year ago the premiere of the sequel to the James Cameron saga (which has only taken 13 years since the first installment was released) now comes this virtual adventure that allows us to get into the skin of a Na’vi in an independent story that is situated, temporarily, between both films.
Massive Entertainment has worked closely with the producers of the films and you can see all the effort they have put into respect as much as possible the lore, aesthetics and narrative of the films. This careful work has been combined with the studio’s good work in building open worlds, in the purest Far Cry style. And this saga is the one that most does not come to mind when looking for references to define the experience of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Some environments from another planet
With the Avatar movies it has always happened to me that I was more impressed by its technical quality than by its narrative. and that’s exactly what happens to me with this Ubisoft sandbox. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora presents an impressive world, with landscapes and open environments full of beauty and detailed to the maximum: lush jungles full of colors, crazy species of fauna and flora and biological patterns with detalles bioluminiscentes all over; enormous plains and expanses of grass as far as the eye can see populated by strange four-legged creatures; titanic mountain ranges; huge lakes loaded with underwater life; rivers of wild waters or floating islands and mountains… The game allows you to explore at will a new continent of Pandora, far from the places visited by the protagonists of the movies. Thus, the game does not mix the narratives and you are free to tell another story with its own protagonists, only offering some general references to the context of the invasion suffered by the planet.
On this western continent the Na’vi have their own run-ins with humans and their ruthless natural resource extraction megacorporation: the GDR. We as a na’vi bred in captivity by humans themselves, we will have to regain our freedom, rediscover our home, recover the roots of our almost disappeared clan and try to lead it to victory against the invaders who are contaminating and plundering our planet. So, we can use a decent editor to customize our own ecological warrior to the fullest (or warrior) and get into their skin to launch ourselves into the open world of Pandora to learn everything about its fauna and flora and use its resources against humans.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Shortly after beginning our adventure, our na’vi will learn to use their native skills to move around Pandora. These include a sixth sense that allows us to see objectives or threats from afar and through any obstacle, highlight the weak points of any structure, mechanism or animal, and learn from every plant, every rock and every living being present on Pandora. This living encyclopedia that we become gives us clues to be able to collect resources and use them in the most varied activities: hunting, collecting food, building weapons, creating remedies and medicines to cure our wounds or infections…
A somewhat repetitive combat
In general, it is really satisfying to get into the shoes of one of these three-meter-tall ecological warriors and start kicking dirty human asses or boycotting their super-polluting mining plants as if you were a Greenpeace activist. Brandishing the bow and making our own arrows and knocking down soldiers armed with their super machine guns is a really fun experience. You feel powerful using the environment and your na`vi powers to gain advantages in confrontations and achieve the objectives set in the main story. But it is true that, after the first three or four hours, the dynamics begin to feel somewhat repetitive and lack an epic or moderately exciting tone.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
And, despite the wonderful surroundings, the great landscapes of Pandora, in them we only find repetitive human structures that seem copied and pasted until you get enough. They all look like the same mining operation, the same outpost… and they are all populated by the same enemy units over and over again. Human soldiers with all the different tones of voices possible, who are little more than cannon fodder, and the pilots of the huge mechs and ships that will constantly harass us. We did not find nothing like a final enemy nowhere, but places increasingly plagued by enemies that are increasingly tougher.
To confront them we will have to have traditional Na’vi weaponry on hand, but above all human weaponry and, protected by a handful of skins, a loincloth and some necklaces, we are very vulnerable to heavy human fire. Thus, we will have to loot all types of facilities to provide ourselves with material, in addition to collecting resources in nature to be stronger and healthier, making all kinds of tools… When we carry with us a rocket launcher and a machine gun and combine that with our ability to move throughout the environment: jumping , gaining height through vines and vines or sliding along the branches of trees, we can become a relentless killer.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
The 25 or 30 hours that it may take us to complete the game are loaded with combat that is somewhat challenging, but in general We have not found too much difficulty in the game (although we can adjust the difficulty of the fights in the general settings). The game also invites us to explore, to soak up all the biological variety of Pandora and the customs and legends of the different Na’vi clans or to hunt the different species whose meat will provide us with better or worse food.
Who wants to be a na’vi?
My problem with Avatar, both the movies and the game, is that I don’t find much interest in its narrative, I don’t find no charisma in the na’vis as characters and I’m not interested in their story in general. So, even though I enjoyed the game’s mechanics and many of its combat moments and exploration missions, I don’t remember a single name of the secondary characters that have appeared throughout history. I was not able to recognize NPCs with whom I had interacted before (they are all blue and have practically the same features) and the pieces of the main story that were being revealed to me were mixed up. Pandora is the closest thing to being in the Smurf village, where you are only able to recognize Smurfette because she is the only girl and Papa Smurf because she has a beard and is the only one dressed in red. I have forgotten most of the things they have told me and I have dedicated myself to moving forward trying to complete the missions that I had active (thanks to the points of light that marked my path and the summary of objectives in the interface, because I had not done much pay attention to the instructions they gave me). But, if you are a fan of Avatar lore, you will surely find all this very interesting and you will enjoy the conversations and details of the game’s story.
Definitely, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an entertaining open-world action and adventure game, which offers you a good handful of hours of exploration and combat with the particularity of Na’vi skills against evil and polluting humans. The technical section of the game is outstanding and the care taken to build and respect the universe of the films is notable. We have been missing a little more variety in the missions, in the enemy structures and bases and, above all, in the enemies to face. Of course, walking, hunting and surviving in Pandora is all an experience.
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