This is how good the new avatar game will be

How many times have games based on films become real cult games? This question will likely spark heated debates among players. On the other hand, what still works relatively well, for games based on film licenses, results in a decline that should not be underestimated. How deep it actually is was already explored in the early 1980s, when ‘ET the Extra-Terrestrial’ was spectacularly destroyed by Atari. In the truest sense of the word, several million unsellable modules ended up buried in the Mexican desert. The most recent example is Daedalic’s tragedy ‘The Lord of the Rings: Gollum’, which eventually even led to the closure of the Hamburg indie institute’s development department.

The good news: For “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora” we can make everything clear in this regard after two and a half hours of play. Developer Ubisoft proved in 2009 with “James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game” that it can convert even difficult templates such as the technically spectacularly complex science fiction fantasy epic into a good action role-playing game.

You take motifs from the film, combine them with an independent story that isn’t too deep and doesn’t offend fans of the franchise with overly liberal interpretations of the Avatar canon – and you’re done. With experienced designers and programmers, not much can actually go wrong. But how good will “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora” really be?

Take: a jungle, flying and lots of action

A plus is certainly that you can experience the journey to Pandora both in single player and in online co-op. The moon, again the setting for the story, becomes an open world in which you can wander around not as a human in an avatar body, but as a Na’vi. You don’t have to reconsider much in terms of content because we are on the same time level as “Avatar 2”. “Avatar” fans probably won’t be bothered by the mallet message either.

The human villains in the form of the ‘Resources Development Administration’, or RDA for short, and their boss John Mercer once again have only the exploitation of nature in mind, although of course the blue-skinned natives get in the way. Harbingers of disaster are RDA drones and various robotic units disrupting the sacred peace of Kinglor Forest.

When it comes to the jungle, Ubisoft shows all the class and experience of its own studios: As you trudge through the undergrowth in first-person view, you can not only see and hear the surrounding nature, but also literally smell it and feel the moisture. It sprouts, ripples, flickers and drips everywhere. Flora and fauna are only vaguely based on natural models, otherwise the developers have clearly let off some steam creating plant forms and fantastical creatures.

There’s a lot of hunting and gathering to do, and since there will also be workbenches and cooking stations in the finished game, this part alone should make for some interesting gameplay. Moreover, you can also ride dragons and ride Pa’li ​​​​as the horses on Pandora are called in the native language.

Woodcut plot against a high-tech background

What worries us, however, is something that can be observed in many open world games at the moment, and is also a known problem in licensed games: people want to cram way too much into the games, even more deadly to actually enjoy. everyone. This is also understandable with ‘Avatar’, because on the one hand the films tread the thin line between family entertainment and action, on the other hand the costs for the license are probably not exactly low and of course you want to make them again. finally. The contrast between nature and technology, combined with a certain naivety of ‘innocent primitive people versus evil capitalists’, is also predetermined by the Cameron films.

In the case of ‘Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’, this mix of circumstances means that at some point you leave the forest and soar through the sky on the back of a kite. That’s quite fun, but it breaks the “back to nature” message at the end when you get into a dogfight with the armed RDA drones and have to short circuit electrical circuits on floating platforms to blow them up. Everyone has to decide for themselves to what extent this fits into the ‘family game’ scheme. Action fans will certainly be pleased with these routinely staged interludes from Ubisoft.

Where’s the AI ​​when you need it?

To eradicate evil, attack a well-guarded enemy position. Only of course, and because you don’t want to set off an alarm, with a bow and arrow. This is a point that leaves us with mixed feelings. Somehow you get the impression that no Ubisoft title can do without this element. Whether it’s “Assassin’s Creed” or “Far Cry” – at some point a combination of sneaking and shooting away at everything that gets in your way almost inevitably follows. There are slight signs of fatigue, especially because the artificial intelligence of the opponents seems to have hardly developed in recent years, despite all the other developments in AI technology.

But the final release is still some time away, and we don’t know how the described game components will be weighed. According to our first impression, Ubisoft will deliver a solid licensed title after two and a half hours that will appeal to both “Avatar” and action fans. However, it must be very clear that you do not deserve an innovation award with something like this. But that might be a bit too much to ask of the game implementation of a cinema blockbuster, especially right before Christmas.

“Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora” will be released on December 7 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC.