It’s rare you’ll find two creative works in such perfect alignment as the cinematic universe of Avatar and the video game series Far Cry. Lush yet dangerous worlds that yearn to be explored? Check. Themes of rebellion and guerrilla warfare? You betcha. Political commentary that’s at best simplistic and at worst downright hypocritical? Er, look over here at our explosive combat sequences, we’ve got those too!
For its virtual spin on James Cameron’s preposterously lucrative movies, Ubisoft Massive sensibly follows the contours between Avatar and Far Cry, arriving at a perfectly capable video game about soaring through eye-popping environments and battling the industrial scourge of Avatar’s human colonists. Yet while Frontiers of Pandora is entertaining, it does little to move either Avatar or the open-world format forward.
In a partial inversion of the original film’s premise, Frontiers of Pandora sees you play a young Na’vi raised in effective captivity by the human RDA faction. After an introductory montage detailing your manipulative and abusive upbringing, you escape from the facility in which you are held, beginning a journey to discover your heritage and unite the Na’vi in resistance against human incursion.
What follows is a largely typical open-world adventure of resource gathering, settlement capturing and various degrees of errand-running for your Na’vi kin. But it’s given flavour by its environmentalist message, which Ubisoft Massive embeds within the game’s systems. Large swathes of Pandora’s environment have been polluted by human industrial installations, ranging from small drilling platforms to sprawling oil refineries. Much of the game revolves around sabotaging these facilities, using a blend of stealth and combat to circumvent troops from the military garrison.
Stealth is simple but effective, encouraging you to get up high. You’d think it’d be easy to spot a nine-foot-tall blue alien perched on top of a distillation unit, but presumably the RDA’s helmets limit their troops’ ability to look up. In combat, meanwhile, you use a mixture of bows, spear throwers, and human firearms to take down enemy soldiers, mechs, and aircraft. As in the films, fighting is bloodless but highly physical. Your Na’vi’s longer limbs and larger weapons let you punt those puny humans around with ease.
When a facility is disabled, the surrounding environment transforms. The dead brown flora spring back to iridescent life, and animals repopulate the area. Not only does this change look splendid, it also lets you take advantage of the rejuvenated landscape, plucking fruit and animal eggs from treetops to cook ability-bolstering meals, and collecting resources such as wood and animal hides to craft new weapons and equipment. None of this is especially radical, but what’s interesting is how Frontiers of Pandora emphasises the physical and spiritual ritual of taking what you need from the forest. You must gather resources at the right time and in the right way to receive the best quality materials, while animals must be killed cleanly to avoid ruining their hides and meat.
The way the game reinforces being one with nature through its interactions is convincing. Even traversing the forest correctly can help you run faster and jump higher, resulting in some thrilling first-person platforming. I’m less enthused by the narrative portrayal of the Na’vi, which is very worthy, but not especially interesting. They all talk like your wistful grandad, unable to go five minutes without imparting wisdom.
Even the younger Na’vi employ the same dreamy, soporific rhetoric, meaning there just isn’t enough distinction in how they speak and act. This, combined with the wide-ranging nature of the game, makes it difficult to establish personal connections with characters. It’s the same problem that Star Wars faces with its Jedi. Obi Wan-Kenobi is a great mentor character, but an entire society of Obi Wan-Kenobis makes for a pretty trying time.
There are other problems, too. Although combat and stealth are both fun, the possibility space they create is smaller than that seen in Far Cry. Your combat abilities are fewer and simpler, while stealth lacks the devious joys of Ubisoft Montreal’s series (although your Na’vi does have a few tricks, such as being able to hack enemy mech-suits). Visually, Frontiers of Pandora is often stunning, particularly the exceptional jungle environments. But the game struggles to maintain that quality at distance, which is a problem in sparser, more rugged, rocky areas. I also encountered several technical problems, including cutscenes running like a slideshow and numerous instances of the game crashing or locking up.
Nonetheless, this is a well-made Avatar game. If you’re fond of the James Cameron films, then you’re in for a real treat, while even Avatar apostates will probably find something to enjoy amid Pandora’s dense undergrowth. But there are better examples of this form, and if you’re not all-in on the Na’vi way of life, you’ll be gritting your teeth through their tedious stories.