What is it? A Far Cry-like set in the world of James Cameron's Avatar
Release date December 6, 2023
Expect to pay $60/£50
Developer Massive Entertainment, Ubisoft Shanghai, Ubisoft Düsseldorf
Publisher Ubisoft
Reviewed on Radeon RX 6600, Ryzen 7 7700x, 32GB DDR5 RAM
Steam Deck TBA
Link Official site
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora transcends its progenitor series Far Cry with an awe-inspiring presentation, a captivating world, and tense combat, but at present, it's buried under a mountain of technical trouble, and it could take months to unearth a genuinely great game with patches and driver support.
When it's working, navigating Pandora is a total joy: sprinting at mach five across the forest floor and parkouring across the serpentine tree roots that connect dense jungle brush to rock formations suspended in zero gravity. Avatar's psychedelic "Ecco the Dolphin color palette meets Starship Troopers industrial sci-fi" look is translated beautifully from film to game, and the skyboxes especially are some of the best I've ever seen. The sheer density and variety of reactive flora and fauna is stunning.
The audio is also a standout, with a score that dynamically shifts from ambient strings that accent the natural sounds of Pandora to pulsating drums and droning synths during combat. It's a soundscape that I expect will see a lot of success outside the game as it's already one of the most diverse and interesting ASMR sound palettes I've ever heard. When I say I intend to use Frontiers of Pandora to put me to sleep, I mean that in the best way possible.
