Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Hands-on: A Far Cry from typical Massive

When watching Avatar: The Way of Water, a film I was surprisingly devoted to, especially considering my reservations about the first Avatar way back in 2009, any gaming enthusiast would also think that Pandora would be ideal in an interactive format. This is partly due to the film's affinity for CGI, but also the colours, iconography and diverse flora and fauna. Although the attempt has been made before, Ubisoft Massive's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is the first real AAA attempt, and I'm told that production has been neither easy nor straightforward, as every aspect of development has had to be scrutinised and approved by a number of bodies, not least James Cameron himself.

Combine that with the fact that Ubisoft desperately needs hits, on top of disappointing financial results and missed deadlines, and you have a bit of a powder keg on your hands. I recently spent a good three hours in Frontiers of Pandora's company and can now tell you a little more about what Massive has put together here.

"It's just a sci-fi Far Cry", we've heard many people say in the months following the first look at gameplay from the game, and let me start by stating that... yes, it is. That's not necessarily a criticism, and even though many felt the mental fatigue with the launch of Far Cry 6, there's still entertainment to be had in destroying enemy strongholds, hunting wildly for vital resources and using the natural environment as cover. And that's exactly what you'll apparently be doing in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Okay, so massive open world, a multitude of minimap icons indicating various player activities, a dynamic mix of stealth and intensive combat where the natural environment around you becomes one of your most important strategic cards, and finally a relatively rudimentary skill tree and gear in colour-coded grades. It's all here, and it's all very Far Cry. It even feels a bit like Far Cry to play a lot of the time, and in one of the missions where I was tasked with shutting down a incinerator, the resemblance was almost striking.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that Avatar is a derivative, a flat clone of something better. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora presented me with a handful of rather magical moments where music, rather magnificent visuals and a recognisable but satisfying gameplay loop fused together to become a Far Cry experience that's innovative enough that it alone reestablished the interest in the formula that died with Far Cry 6. Perhaps Pandora is exactly what that formula needs?

It's hard for me to comment on the story, as my session started relatively late in the campaign. However, my first task was to recruit my very own Ikran, a winged lizard that serves as both a means of transport but also a faithful companion in battle. To find my very own Ikran, I had to climb one of Pandora's highest mountains, which is also featured in Avatar: The Way of Water, and that journey was actually quite convincing as an example of main missions, with the music, basic platforming and general controls being satisfying and responsive. Again, there's nothing really innovative going on here, but it's functional.

Using my Ikran to, among other things, hack a series of low-hanging weather stations that are supposedly poisoning part of the area's surface also proved entertaining enough, and while aerial combat is even simpler, as you're really only equipped with a strafe and access to a central firearm, it worked well.

I didn't get much of a feel for how various side activities distract you from the main missions, but it seemed like you're generally collecting resources, participating in dynamic events around the game world and finding new, better gear, either as a direct reward from these activities or through crafting. Again, at the risk of repeating myself too many times, it's all been done before, especially in the Far Cry series, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Fortunately, Massive has done a solid job of plastering a pretty nice interface all over the game that makes it all feel very Avatar-like. The colours and layout fit well with the aesthetic of the universe, and even though I initially had to get used to the game's typical "x-ray vision" that all modern games of this type should have, it all feels dynamic and well put together.

I have no doubt that many will find hours of solid entertainment in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and sneaking through the ferns and placing an accurate heavy arrow into the chest of a soldier in a mech is as cool as it looked in Way of Water, but it's hard to ignore how copied it all feels. Especially mirroring Far Cry Primal, a game that also ditches vehicles and a modern time period in favour of a bigger aesthetic leap, the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora skeleton is something we're familiar with, with a different, possibly more fun skin. It's funny that this is what Massive has ended up making when it looks so directly similar to something Ubisoft Montreal has been making for over 10 years since the launch of Far Cry 3 in 2012.

I think I'll give myself over to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora in December and see if the Far Cry formula holds up for another go, especially with the quirky Avatar touches, but it's not exactly an innovative game, and from a studio that once gave us the Dark Zone in the first The Division, it's a bit of a shame.