Advertised to accompany the film. Avatar: The Channel, but repeatedly delayed, Ubisoft’s game seemed to have fallen into oblivion. But he continued, year after year, his merry way and will point the tip of his nose at December 7th.
It is therefore a thunderous return to the front of the stage that the Ubisoft Forward conference offered to this Avatar: Borders of Pandora. The French publisher had made no secret that it would be on the summer reunion show and was one of the stars, revealing a bit of gameplay and lifting the veil on its plot.
And, like James Cameron’s film versions, the game Avatar showed great ambitions both visually and in storytelling. It will take players to the western frontier of Pandora, in a very large open world that will have to be explored in all directions, with its five different biomes and just as many specific tribes.
A parallel game, but a new story.
It took more than five years of development to achieve a result worthy of the 7th Art. The game designed by the Massive studio (The Division, Star Wars Outlaws) runs under the improved Snowdrop engine of the house and it is easy to imagine James Cameron checking that everything fits the idea he has always had of his planet, ray tracing for more realism and all possible creation technologies. And the result lives up to expectations with a bright, colourful, vibrant and animated world, with ultra-realistic flora and fauna. Sometimes we barely know the difference between the movie and the game until the moment the human beings land on the screen.
These human beings will once again be the killjoys of Pandora. The story ofAvatar: Borders of Pandora takes place before the first film, around 2138. It is at this time that the Na’vi children are kidnapped by the RDA, a terrible organization that has come to settle on Pandora. For years, these children are raised as if they were on Earth, to fight, weapons in hand, against their peers, about whom they have forgotten everything.
When the humans decide to flee Pandora by abandoning them, the children find themselves without reference points and frozen for 15 years. When he wakes up, one of the Na’vi goes in search of his roots to reconnect with his people and his heritage, but also to understand what it is to be a Na’vi (weapons, customs, gastronomy, etc.). The RDA then returns, determined to finish looting Pandora’s resources. Raised between two worlds, the young heroine chooses her own fate and rebels against humans for the sake of her people and her world.
A promised visual and technological slap in the face
The game primarily offers single-player and first-person action-adventure, but can also be played in two-player online co-op. Massive decided to create a parallel story, with new characters and new places whose main plot, however, takes place at the same time as the second film. Contains the codesAvatar with exploration, beautiful landscapes, flights on the back of Ikran, his pet bird, or walks on land.
The player will have the opportunity to use human weapons such as Na’vi bows and arrows, take advantage of their large size and agility to fight, but also accumulate resources to improve their equipment such as their health. Please note that the game also takes into account actions performed that may have an impact on Pandora and the vegetation on it, in order to gain valuable resources as well.
It is a rich and varied game that has been presented. For the first time, fans of the saga will be able to visit Pandora and all corners of it, from the forests to the skies, from the mountains to the oceans. James Cameron as Ubisoft and Massive promised: the game will be visually and technologically luxurious. The first images already make you think very easily. Avatar: Borders of Pandora it would have taken a long time. Away from the clutches of blockbuster that won’t immediately suffer by comparison, it may have a chance to live its life without pressure if not one of the most ambitious and indeed my most anticipated games of the coming months. An even bigger trap.
AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA – Available December 7, 2023 on PS5, Xbox Series X⎜S and PC.
Source: BFM TV
