Hey, This New Far Cry: Avatar Game is Pretty Rad

Frontiers of Ubisoft

I remember, way back in 2012, when Far Cry 3 came out and was widely regarded as a “pretty good game,” everyone was kinda worried that Ubisoft would take this fun and successful template and copy & paste it until it was begging for a quick death.

Fast forward through Far Cry: Blood Dragon, Far Cry 4, Far Cry Primal, Far Cry 5, Far Cry New Dawn, and Far Cry 6—and that’s kinda exactly what Ubisoft has done.

It has only taken 12 years, but it seems as though a true successor to Far Cry 3 has finally arrived, and all it took was the Avatar IP, and the people who made the Division games (Massive Entertainment—who, as a side note, will also be putting out Star Wars Outlaws this year).

For the most part, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is the perfect game for people who like the Far Cry formula (even if they feel it’s gotten a bit stale in the last 10 years) and also think the world of Pandora is cool AF, especially if they don’t really have much interest in Avatar as a movie franchise.

Avatar, in movie form, is weird. I don’t feel like anyone I know, or anyone I’ve ever known, or anyone who has ever been born on this planet … would consider themselves to be a “fan” of the franchise. Yet, these movies made and are continuing to make buttloads of money, proving that you should never bet against James Cameron.

I saw both movies, and boy, do those things look really good; the technical achievement on display elevates them to another level. In 2009, the first Avatar had some of the best special effects to date. And in 2022, the Way of Water did the same thing.

They look good, and the world of Pandora is fantastically realized. It’s just too bad that the story in both movies is serviceable at best.

As it turns out … that’s basically my opinion of the game, too!

A Whole New World

The world of Pandora and, by extension, the graphics are simply the star of the show here. The planet has been beautifully brought to video game life, and it was a blast just to bounce around the different locations, seeing the sights and exploring the frontier(s).

In many ways, this is a game of vistas; everywhere you go, you’re greeted with Pandora’s majesty—and I don’t mean that lightly. This planet is a goddamn beauty. Around every corner is a brilliant setpiece, and down every cliff, you can see the alien land stretch out.

Of course, all of this majesty is only enhanced by just how damn good Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora looks. This is easily one of the best-looking games to come out of 2023. Sure, you need a pretty hefty PC (or a console) to really do it justice, but even on the lower settings, it’s a looker.

The game is split into three distinctive areas: two forests and a plains. The experience revealed to me that I seem to be a sucker for forests, because, while definitely full of its own beauty, the Upper Plains is just not as cool as the game’s two forests, Kinglor (where you start the game) and Clouded Forest (the final area you unlock).

Fast travel is plentiful for getting around, and you can eventually just make fast travel free, basically making the world feel 10x smaller. That sense of world size is also helped by the fact that you earn your ikran (flying mount) early on.

Taking to the skies is a great way to take a lot of the luster from any game, and although you have to “unlock” the mount in the subsequent two ears as you get there, that doesn’t take long. And it won’t be long into Avatar that you’re just flying around without a care in the world.

Flying isn’t much of a problem, because Pandora’s darned pretty to look at that. So, it’s not too bad, just flying past everything from a few hundred feet in the air. Between the floating rocks and the gargantuan trees, Avatar is never a dull moment.

Oh Yeah, This Is a Video Game, Too

While I would’ve probably been content for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora to be an interactive experience in which you’re just exploring its vast frontiers, there’s a game here, too.

And, as stated in the intro, at its foundation is the Far Cry formula that Ubisoft has beaten the dead horse out of over the last decade. While Avatar uses that formula effectively, it ultimately feels like another entry to the Far Cry series, just the freshest entry in a long time.

The open world is filled with stuff to do: there are bases to capture, settlements with side quests to do (most of which are actually pretty interesting and fun in their own right), oil extractors ruining the environment everywhere, and plenty more to see and collect.

There’s an awful lot to do, and it can definitely get repetitive since there’s no real variance in the world’s three different zones. It’s a lot of the same stuff to do no matter where you go, from the same kind of Na’vi settlements across all three zones to similar oil extractors.

This repetition is helped a bit by the fact that the game is fun to play, especially considering you’re a 10-foot-tall alien wielding a giant bow. Sure, you could use a gun, which surprisingly never looks too small in Na’vi hands, but the bows and spear thrower are all too much fun not to use—even if they suspend disbelief a bit in their ability to take out aircraft.

It’s also a ridiculous amount of fun to punch and kick puny humans and send them flying. Overall, the scale of the Na’vi makes for some fun interactions, especially when you’re running around human settlements and fortifications.

Outside of bow shenanigans, you have your boilerplate skill and gear system. Skills are kind of a bummer, and really just provide passive bonuses that don’t really affect gameplay too much, and gear is just your typical treadmill of finding items with slightly bigger numbers.

Saved Best for Last, Story

Just kidding—the story is by far not the best thing about Avatar. It’s not outright bad, but it’s certainly forgettable and primarily a vehicle for the gameplay shenanigans, although some of the mission design around those narrative beats is pretty fun.

I’ll avoid spoilers, mostly out of consideration for anyone who might want to play this blind, but also because I can’t be bothered to write about it. The general gist is that you escape from your human captor, and amass a fighting force of nearby Na’vi tribes to get rid of these pesky humans.

Ultimately, though, the story is purely the way in which you get to explore the world and go on fun missions, even if the narrative thread binding everything together is nothing to write home about.

Let’s Close This Thing Out

So, ultimately, I didn’t feel like writing 30,000 words about Avatar, but I did want to get it its due, because I genuinely enjoyed my time with it. But if you’ve played any other Ubisoft game, especially Far Cry, you know what you’re getting with this one.