A Short Review of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and What I ACTUALLY Wish I Knew Before Buying

By short review, this is actually a re-posting of a post I left on the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Facebook page because... oh. my. Eywa.

 

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First, I want to say I am a HUGE fan of Avatar, of the moves, the lore, everything; ridiculously so. This game is SO beautiful. A dream come true. The game is GORGEOUS.

But, as a gamer, there are severe issues with this game that is filling me with a lot of regret: First, I'm left-handed and the default left-handed controls are nothing like in any other game. They're really bad >_> Which in itself is not the issue. I have found out when I close out this game and restart it later, I have to manually re-enter ALL of the key bindings I did.... WHAT? EVERY TIME? Guys.... Please send this comment to whatever department it needs to go to because this NEEDS to be fixed.

Secondly, why is this an open-world game but I cannot save the game when *I* want to save it? Reading on Reddit, a LOT of people are not happy about this. And If I miss the 3 dots in the corner of the screen indicating that it did save, I'll have no clue when it saved. On top of that, the game won't save when you exit.... GUYS. That makes NO sense. The only thing I can think of is you all want people to play as long as possible to log hours and show how popular the game is, when in truth we're only playing longer than we mean to because we're waiting on the game to save. That is NOT cool.

And apparently you only get ONE save file per game, so if you run into a game-breaking bug... that's it, you have to start over. Are you serious? Who on your development team approved that?!

Also, rebinding keys has two major flaws:

• You cannot actually rebind any two-key inputs, for example the "roll" inputs on the ikran.
• The ESC key is the confirm key instead of, you know, the cancel key. There is no cancel key.
  W H Y ?
  

Why do you guys insist on going backwards? Even the original Avatar game you guys did had multiple saves and you could save where you wished, if I recall correctly. In any case, this is still all a backwards move.
Also, please stop putting ads in your game menus for buying things like unnecessary cosmetic packs and season passes... not cool. At LEAST make it a sub-menu! No one likes being advertised to in their games; we want IMMERSION. Which is, as I recall, the reason you guys made it first-person only... well I don't feel very immersed if I have to constantly stress about when my game saved itself and if I'm going to run into a game-breaking quest that'll make me start over.

Please do yourself, as a company, a favor and look at what Larian did with Baldur's Gate 3. There are MANY reasons why they swept the game awards this year. The main one? Player autonomy and choice, guys. Stop taking player choice away.

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 I want to re-iterate here:

• You cannot save your game manually;
• The game chooses when it will save itself, and this does not include when you exit the game, so you will lose your progress up to when the game last saved itself;
• You only get ONE save file, which saves over itself every time, so there is no "going back".
• If you want to quit the game when you want to, hopefully you're fine with losing progress. 
• You have to re-bind your keys every time you launch the game. 
• What. The. Actual. Fuck. 

Yea, um, stop taking player choice away--especially when the developers make bad decision upon bad decision. Guys, if your game saves right before a big battle and you find yourself wholly unprepared and you get beat every time, guess what? That's your endless loop, because there is only one save file, that saves over itself when IT wishes, not when YOU wish. 

 That means you just have to start a whole new game and not make a single "mistake".

Did I mention this game also will not save itself when you exit, so you have to just notice or guess where it saved last? The other day I wanted to take a break because I was playing too long, but I didn't want to lose any progress, had no idea where it saved last, and had to keep playing until

 As a gamer, I don't advise buying this game. Ubisoft made horrible decisions by taking player autonomy away, for no reason that I can see.

As an Avatar fan, I also can't advise buying this game unless you want to drive yourself to insanity, because it's so beautiful but so infuriating.

I'm starting to wonder who has regulations about taking lead out of baby's toys because all the developers are making the WORST decisions for a game you could EVER make...

 

Also, random other bits I find annoying (and I will be editing this post to add to it variously);

• First-person view only. *sigh*
• It's not an RPG. Open-world, yes. RPG, no. You don't get to make any decisions. Your character does that for you. *sighs again*
• So many NPCs but you can't talk to them or ask them questions. There's no such thing as dialogue trees.
• Again I need to stop playing to do something but my last save was... when? I don't want to lose the items I just collected. And when I do log back into the game, I need to reset the keybindings--okay, I'm just gonna stop playing tonight. I'm too annoyed.
  

My Collection!

 Oel ayngati kameie ma smuk, I see you brothers and sisters!

I see many people sharing photos of their collections online, so I thought I should put my collection up too!

Well, the photos may be a bit small for the full shelves, so I took some close up photos too. :D

My shelf where the bulk of my collection is!
 

My topmost shelf, you'll have to forgive the dust. I'm a little short so it's hard to see up there! But my biggest or most expensive pieces are here, including the wonderful statue of Jake on his banshee from Disney's Pandora. I have the Hot Toys' Jake, and then the pair matching statues of Jake and Neytiri. Right next to them are some of the Mattel Avatar figures.

Next shelf is a lot of little things! Some from Disney's Pandora, I have their collection of small Pandoran animals, and some extra pins that didn't fit onto my ita-bag (which is pictured below). I also got the whole Kinder Eggs collection! This I did by ordering a 24-pack from Amazon, and I happened to get all of them in one go, plus some extras. Additionally, the large Pandoran forest piece and Pandoran reef are from the wonderful collection by McFarlane. Finally, I have Quarritch's watch--or rather, the standard-issue Re-combatant's watch from Avatar 2! (The G-Shock GA-700UC, if you need to know!)

A close-up. In the back is a lovely globe with an atokirina in it, also from Disney. It actually plugs in and lights up, but I was worried any light would wash out other stuff so I didn't turn it on here. There is also a cup top from Regal Theatres.

The Metkayina reef and kinder-egg toys, as well as 3 of the cup tops from Regal Theatres.

The cups from both Regal Theatres and a cup from AMC in front. The plushies are from Disney. In the nice piece of wood I have a half-figure of Jake (I gifted him to someone but apparently they forgot half of it in my apartment!), a tiny banshee toy model that pairs with my custom Avatar from Disney, 3 Disney MagicBands--just my favorite designs!--some make up and a bunch of miscellaneous Avatar items in a bowl that is also from AMC's release of Avatar 2, but it's hidden behind the watches.

Close-up of the books and all of the comics. The blue binder is my language card collection from Disney. I'm working on collecting them all, and have most of them, but I'm looking to trade!

Next, the movies, popcorn tins from Regal Theatres, a basket with more miscellaneous goodies, a shirt, my shoulder banshee from Disney (which, I'm sad to report, has developed holes!), another figure, cards, and... the movies! I have a Japanese version as well as I actually lived in Japan when Avatar initially came out! I have all of the games, multiple editions of the movie, and the first books to come out.

 Close-up!

Posters and more McFarlane figures! I think honestly this Jake and Neytiri are my favorite, because they're travel-size! I also got a banshee in the colors I like the most.

A lovely thick blanket from Disney, two throw pillows from Amazon, 2 pants (the Na'vi striped ones are from Disney, I also have the tail and ears set, too!), the "A" pants are also from Amazon as is the shirt!

My updated ita-bag and the pride of my accessory collection! All my pins except the ones pictured above are squeezed onto my bag as much as possible. The background in the purse is from a McFarlane toy box XD I save and reuse as many things as I can, as you can see with the two card holders. The only pin not from Disney is the blue heart, and that I bought at the movie theatre. It was for a donation, and I got 3 of them--two I made into earrings!

 Bags! I love, love, LOVE my LoungeFly bag. I chose this one over the banshee-wing one because I loved it way more. And alongside it are two draw-string bags, both from Disney, along with the little Shaman of Songs plushie!

Some of my language cards, the Pandora Guide to Flora and Fauna, and ears-and-tail set, all from Disney.

 

 

More pins, an ACE Pandora passport and badges, again all from Disney. The mystery box contains a tulkun pin. Both badges were given to me by a manager at Disney and was sent in a box of goodies meant for AvatarMeet fans who came to Disney. However, because it was sent after our meet there, I still have the box of extra badges. They're slated for AvatarMeet members, as soon as we can all get together again!

Some cards that came with the old Mattel figures, the AvatarMaker badge is for my custom Avatar from Disney. The banshee, also pictured below, is a Hallmark ornament for a holiday tree.

The Jake Hallmark ornament, and some random backgrounds saved from jewelry and pins. I used a background piece like this in my card holders for my ita-bag. The long one can make a good bookmark, and I'm saving the rest because why not!

Jewelry! The necklaces and bracelets are from Hot Topic, the two "A" Hearts are pins that I just use as earrings (coating the back in clear nailpolish helps against itching caused by the cheap metal), and finally the Na'vi-and-human hand pendant and atokirina pendant are from Disney. I also use them as earrings. 

I also have some shirts, too, and honestly I probably missed some things randomly around my apartment. But all in all, that's it! :) 

Thanks for looking!

Frontiers of Pandora -- Play Information & Release Date

 Oel ayngati kameie, ma smuk! I see you, brothers and sisters :)

 We finally got some great news regarding Ubisoft's upcoming game, Frontiers of Pandora! 

It's going to release on December 7th, 2023!

We got 2 release trailers showing off some truly gorgeous scenery!! They're linked in the bottom of this blog.

 

Game-play, I think, is the most important question--how are we going to be able to play? Can we switch between first and third person?

Well, sadly the answer on POV is no. It's a forced first-person perspective until you are riding an ikran or pa'li (direhorse), where it switches to third person POV.

So let's go over some relevant information straight  from Ubisoft's blog:

"A stand-alone adventure set within the Avatar universe, you will explore and protect a never-before-seen continent of Pandora: the Western Frontier in first-person. Your Na'vi character is customizable with options including different body types, voices and body paint, and like you, your character will learn how to be a Na'vi, including how to harness your formidable strength and agility while traversing through the stunning and dangerous open world. Add to that your knowledge of humans, their weapons and technology from years of RDA training, and you are uniquely equipped to combat the RDA and protect Pandora. "

While it doesn't say you can switch between genders, I think it's probably a given that you can. It's also clear in their blog that you can use both Na'vi and human weapons. I like that they specify the Na'vi weapons are more precise, so I think the human weapons will not be so over-powered.

Additionally, we get this lovely nugget: 

"The game will also have a number of accessibility options at launch, such as control remapping, subtitles and subtitle size adjustments, and color-blind modes. Your adventure can also be shared: play Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora either in single-player, or two-player online co-op."

And honestly, I also love that you cannot side with the RDA, unlike the first Ubisoft Avatar PC game. I mean, morally speaking, it's the wrong thing to do--you shouldn't want to destroy Pandora or the Na'vi! Also, I don't think it would make sense for the character.

It is a curious story-line--a kidnapped child, made to grow up in the way of the invaders--yes, colonizers, too--but then you get to learn about where you truly belong as a Na'vi. This takes away the dilemma an Avatar might face, and I think honestly it was a good call for the team to make.

And... it's so beautiful! The forest where the trees float above the ground, the mountains, everything! I really hope the day-night cycle in the game is independent of storyline progression, because then it will truly feel open-world to me. I have to admit, I basically want Skyrim on Pandora.

I really can't wait for this game, and I hope other fans are just as excited for it. We'll need it to tide us over after, sadly, the news that the next few Avatar movies have been delayed. Avatar 3 is now slated for December 2025. 

I've linked the Ubisoft trailers below for convenience, so please enjoy them!

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

 

You can also look at pre-order options here on the Ubisoft site!
 

There are also pre-orders seperately for a Collector's Edition! Sadly, it seems only for PS5 and XBox... which as a PCer gamer I am NOT happy about. And to up the exclusivity even more, you must (at least for now) PowerUp Rewards Pro member to buy it.

 

Nonetheless, I'm still excited for the game itself. I can't wait to explore Pandora!

Siva ko!