As soon as December comes, we all dream of treating ourselves to a dream holiday abroad to round off a busy year. The Ubisoft studio is now taking this desire to the extreme and inviting players who are more than four light years away from Earth Avatar: Borders of Pandora. Result: a stay we had been waiting for for a long time, but in an environment that we found less hospitable than we expected.
Welcome to Pandora, a distant exomoon created by American filmmaker James Cameron in 2009 for the Avatar cinematic universe. But for this journey, the Ubisoft studio grants us almost complete freedom to explore its green and wild lands as we wish. Green on Controls a Na'vi (or a Na'vi, the choice is yours), those familiar bluish humanoid creatures.
This time, however, the roles are reversed. While James Cameron's films revolved around people trying to adapt to the inhabitants of Pandora, the game is about a Na'vi character who was kidnapped by Earthlings who wanted to raise him according to their habits and customs.
Once he regains his freedom, the Na'vi controlled by the player must restore his own culture and fight against the RDA, a terrestrial organization that has become rampant on the planet Pandora at the expense of its nature.
Photo provided by Ubisoft
Confused missions
This all seems very simple in theory. But in practice it's a completely different story. Because the quests offered to the player are often chaotic and confusing, and their instructions are written in gibberish that is incomprehensible to beginners.
Hack and destroy the cooling device of a drill? Can you find the Echo Air Tower? Okay… but where? And how? You have to manage – and often have patience – to figure out the mechanics and processes to use, as Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora gives the player very little advice on a mission.
And not to mention the less than instinctive combat mechanics and the rather outdated weapons at our disposal, two elements that make the encounters difficult and sometimes even not very pleasant. We also have unnecessarily complicated tasks such as collecting fruits or resources that force the player to find different manual maneuvers to collect multiple trinkets in the wild. A good idea on paper, but it quickly becomes boring and adds enormous amounts to the most trivial tasks.
Beautiful
Fortunately, all of this takes place in environments that are always sumptuous and bright. Even though we often lose our bearings in “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora,” we are always amazed by the landscapes, which are recreated day and night with impressive details.
Our stay on Pandora was therefore perhaps not the most harmonious. But it remains unforgettable.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora ★★★☆☆
Available for PS5, Xbox Series and PC