Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

You can spend countless hours cataloging the various plant life throughout the Western Frontier, seeking out every Tsraya flower to unlock new upgrades, and dismantling RDA bases far and wide - and I probably will. I am constantly in awe of the places I discover in Frontiers, from grand vistas to hidden caves to lookout points on floating mountains that give you the most incredible view. It’s a world I’m excited to continue exploring and learning about, and overall it has deepened my love for Avatar. Ubisoft’s strengths are also sometimes the things that keep it running in place, unable to iterate and evolve, and Frontiers is the perfect example of that. It’s everything you love and hate about Ubisoft games, Avatar-style.

It's a Ubisoft open-worlder to its core, but this spin on the world of Avatar has some really special moments.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora brilliantly takes us into the world created by James Cameron, telling a canonical story that takes place in an unseen area of Pandora but that we can perceive as authentic thanks to the care and attention Massive Entertainment has put into its creation. However, that's the only truly excellent aspect within a production that promised so much (quadruple A, they said) and instead proves to lack great ideas.

For gamers with a current gen console or powerful PC, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an incredible-looking open world experience. It is a seamless extension of the films, which will appeal to many fans. But underneath all that flash, flora, and fauna is a lack of imagination and unsatisfying FPS combat. Pandora’s lovingly recreated beauty contains mystery, power and a fair amount of disappointment.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a technical marvel due to its gorgeous open world with an alluring atmosphere that calls for exploration, but is unfortunately hindered by the “sameness” of Ubisoft open-world games from the past decade. It offers some new elements like wilder parkour sequences and more hunting oriented gameplay, but not even remotely enough to be hailed as something new or innovative.