Five Tips for Getting Started in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Massive Entertainment's anticipated take on the world of James Cameron's Avatar has made its debut. No doubt this means many of you are already exploring the alien moon and beginning to find your footing in the beautiful yet hostile world. If you've yet to start that adventure but are looking for a few tips and tricks to get you under way, we've got you covered with exactly that.

Stick to the beaten path... at least for a little while

When you finally make it out into Pandora, you're going to want to just head out into the wilderness to explore and to see what secrets the world holds. Don't... not for a little while. Pandora is massive, and is designed with a huge amount of verticality in mind. While the Na'Vi are very athletic, when it comes to scaling mountains and running marathons, they are not the most efficient. They can do it, but if you decide to stay on foot, it will take you a long while to get anywhere. So, stick to the beaten path, complete the main quest lines that are served up to you and keep doing so until you at the very least bond with your Ikran. Once you can freely ride your aerial mount, exploration becomes infinitely easier and less time consuming. Plus, you're far less likely to be crushed or eaten by wildlife when soaring through the skies.

Use the Guided Exploration mode

Talking about exploration, at the start of the game (or anytime when visiting the settings), you'll be asked to choose between two exploration modes. One guides you, which essentially means you'll be able to see markers or where your next quest location lies. The other attempts to make the game as immersive as possible by asking you to find quests and locations solely with very broad directions presented by the game. You are not from Pandora and this alien world is not the easiest to get around, especially when your feet are on the ground and your vision is obscured by towering trees and vines and floating mountains. Keep the guided mode on, at least until you find your footing, else navigation and finding quest markers and the next story beats will become frustrating.

Know your limits

It may look like Far Cry on the surface, but Frontiers of Pandora differs from that action series in one big way. The world is not your playground. Pandora is a living body and everything and everyone, invading RDA included, has the potential to kill you. So, if the game tells you that a base or a mission is beyond your skill or power level, take the hint and come back when you're ready for it, else you will be in for a rude awakening when the RDA mechs and Pandoran beasts teach you the meaning of pain.

Stealth is your best friend

In a similar vein to knowing your limits, it's worth being aware that while Frontiers of Pandora has all the familiar trappings of a Far Cry game, it plays very differently. You are not a walking-talking force of nature that can shoot and blast through any opposition that stands in front of you. If you attempt to complete every mission as violently and loudly as possible, the RDA mechs and armoured soldiers will quickly prove that their gear and weapons are far superior to yours. So, keep to the shadows, maintain high ground, and stay as silent as the night. Pick off enemies with your traditional and quiet Na'Vi weapons, avoid combat until absolutely necessary. Stick to this and the RDA will have a nightmare stopping your efforts.

Hack, hack, hack

The Na'Vi are not tech wizards, but your warrior is gifted very early on with a tool called SID that is predominantly used to hack doors and computer terminals. SID however, is also a brilliant weapon for dealing with RDA mechs, as you can hack their systems and then essentially paralyse them for a short duration, to either allow you to sneak by without being concerned of being detected or to setup a prime opportunity to strike and instantly neutralise the threat they pose. A word of warning with this more violent method: if a mech is armoured, you cannot instantly take them down, and if you attempt to do so, you will likely just enrage them and attract lots of unwanted attention.

These are just a few key tricks to conquering Pandora. If you come up with any additional useful tips, be sure to share them in the comments below to help fellow readers as they take on Massive's action-adventure game.