Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora

[Brian Boru]

A new Far-Cry-like, huh?

I watched 2 videos today—launch day—and so far I like what I see.

Gameranx Before You Buy 11m

Boomstick Tips & Mechanics 8m

World is gorgeous, maybe even better than Far Cry Primal. Gameplay looks fun, and a lot of bow action—another Primal influence, even tho the devs are different?

PC Specs acc to Ubi:

Minimum requirements
(1080p at 30 frames per second, Low graphics preset, AMD FSR 2 set to Quality)
Operating system Windows 10, Windows 11 (64-bit versions)
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 3600 @ 3.6 GHz, Intel Core i7-8700K @ 3.70 GHz, or better
RAM 16 GB (running dual-channel mode)
Video card AMD RX 5700 (8 GB), Intel Arc A750 (8 GB, with ReBAR on), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB), or better
Hard drive 90 GB available storage (SSD)
DirectX version DirectX 12

Recommended requirements
(1080p at 60 frames per second, High graphics preset, AMD FSR 2 set to Quality)
Operating system Windows 10, Windows 11 (64-bit versions)
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 5600X @ 3.7 GHz, Intel Core i5-11600K @ 3.9 GHz, or better
RAM 16 GB (running dual-channel mode)
Video card AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (12 GB), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (8 GB), or better
Hard drive 90 GB available storage (SSD)
DirectX version DirectX 12

Sadly I'm a little below minimum, but hopefully that'll be fixed by the time I'll consider purchasing

Please share your experiences and views.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'll have one of my clueless reports from the frontlines tomorrow.

 

[Colif]

Seems like it works really well with FSR3 & Frame Gen

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Has the Best AMD FSR 3 Frame Generation Implementation to Date, Software RT Only

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is going to show how great AMD FSR 3 frame generation can work, as it is its best implementation to date

wccftech.com

There are only 3 games with it built in so far, so not a massive achievement.
I looked and I saw movie name and stopped.

 

[Colif]

It looks amazing... I thought, lets go look at reviews, since I want to see some of these effects myself

Spoiler

 

[ZedClampet]

I just finished the intro. It was your standard Far Cry escape sort of thing. I enjoyed it, but even I will need a mod to skip this one on a second playthrough.

UI is different but workable. For the life of me, I will never understand why Ubi reinvents the wheel with every game. I'd rather have a familiar UI every game than to needlessly adjust to new ones.

Bow feels good. It's more of a delayed firing gun since there doesn't seem to be much, if any, projectile drop.

I have a feeling I've just cracked the surface on movement, but you have a jump that needs to be charged (both when stationary and when moving) and some vines you can travel upward with.

World is absolutely beautiful. Story is an imperialistic take on Far Cry.

Did some stealth and that feels pretty good. Went loud and that feels pretty good. Did some resource gathering and crafting, which was alright. Wasn't a lot of stuff to hide behind in that area.

I'd say that the basics are all there. Whether it's actually fun or not will depend on the missions, I guess. Hopefully they are well thought out and varied.

 

[ZedClampet]

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora review

A Pandora's box of technical issues.

www.pcgamer.com

Just read this. It's almost entirely irrelevant to me since it spends most of its time nit-picking the portrayal of imperialism as being shallow and not true to the movies, and also talking about microaggressions in the dialogue. The writer is basically disgusted by everything story related, even slamming the game's murderous schools for being called "residential schools".

I honestly couldn't care less about any of that, but the article does mention some serious bugs and poor performance. Strangely, it also says it could be the best Far Cry Ubisoft ever made, reminding the writer of FC3. After everything else the writer said, it comes across like saying the Klan throws a great Christmas party.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'd rather have a familiar UI every game than to needlessly adjust to new ones

Well…
Ubi have never come close to a decent UI in Far Cry, so I'm all for continued experimentation in the right direction. UIs so far:
FC3—abysmal, truly awful
FC4—bad, but a lot better than 3
FC4 Primal—better again, just poor overall
FC5—Best so far, merely frustrating and annoying
FC6—A step backwards, but probably still 2nd least-worst

Bow feels good. It's more of a delayed firing gun since there doesn't seem to be much, if any, projectile drop

I hope there'll be 2 bows, one with drop, one without. The drop makes it fun at times.

I wish games treated bows like sidearms, ie not taking up a general weapon slot. They're not feasible at higher levels where you need quick reload and firing, and where recovering arrows is often less feasible. But they're fun to play out in the wild.

They're ok once you get explosive arrows, so they serve the anti-vehicle and -air role, but that's more limited.

intro … even I will need a mod to skip this one

Progress is slow, but inevitable

I have a feeling I've just cracked the surface on movement

The Gameranx video above has some stuff on the movement, looks like some interesting options.

I'd say that the basics are all there. Whether it's actually fun or not will depend on the missions, I guess

Delira to heara I make my own fun in FC games, so missions aren't make or break for me—but like all the other incidentals, I'll take the best they can offer

It's almost entirely irrelevant

Agree, and the author seems to prefer melee play too, for which FC-like is never going to seem like a good choice. Criticizing story in a game where the player has a lot of agency is just silly—it's not RPG or Visual Novel or corridor melee or whatever else can support a story.

I can see myself punching me in the head if this is for every kill
"you say a solemn prayer after punching a dog in the back of the head eight times and then kick it down a ridge"

Oh hey, someone please mod in a hurley! Pretty please…
"lacrosse sticks that lob grenades"

I need someone's rust-proofed shoulder:
"a hard pass from anyone who doesn't have a high-end machine"

I am baffled by this:
"a publisher whose open world games often seem intent on wasting your time. … it's been the most fun I've had with one of these games since Far Cry 3"
FC3 was the most time-wasting of the FC games, except for FC2 probably, so that makes no sense.

some serious bugs and poor performance

They should be sorted whenever it comes time to play this

 

[ZedClampet]

Well…
Ubi have never come close to a decent UI in Far Cry, so I'm all for continued experimentation in the right direction. UIs so far:
FC3—abysmal, truly awful
FC4—bad, but a lot better than 3
FC4 Primal—better again, just poor overall
FC5—Best so far, merely frustrating and annoying
FC6—A step backwards, but probably still 2nd least-worst

For me this one is a step backwards, but I didn't mind any of the FC UI's, so you may think this is a step up.

I hope there'll be 2 bows, one with drop, one without. The drop makes it fun at times.


I wish games treated bows like sidearms, ie not taking up a general weapon slot. They're not feasible at higher levels where you need quick reload and firing, and where recovering arrows is often less feasible. But they're fun to play out in the wild.

They're ok once you get explosive arrows, so they serve the anti-vehicle and -air role, but that's more limited.

I've already gotten a second bow and explosive arrows, but I can only carry one weapon, although I think there are 4 slots

Delira to heara I make my own fun in FC games, so missions aren't make or break for me—but like all the other incidentals, I'll take the best they can offer

I'm not knocking FC games. They are quite good at what they do, but there's not really a lot of extra stuff you can do in FC games that I enjoy. I'll do the hunting and crafting and leveling to max, but that's about it. Pretty much just a series of missions to me other than those things. You really enjoy redoing areas and trying different loadouts and such, but I have other games that do those things much better if I'm interested in doing that. I've spent thousands of hours in games like Craftopia, Warframe and Forza Horizon playing with much more extensive loadouts, for instance. However, the stealth/combat in FC games is usually top notch, which is why I play them. I love going for "undetected".

I can see myself punching me in the head if this is for every kill
"you say a solemn prayer after punching a dog in the back of the head eight times and then kick it down a ridge"

I killed a dog and a few other things and there were no solemn prayers said, so it must just be a rare thing, fortunately. And I killed these things after you mentioned it, and was looking for them, so it's not like I just wasn't paying attention (which can definitely happen with me).

"a hard pass from anyone who doesn't have a high-end machine"

I wish I had one of my old laptops to test the game on, but I only buy new ones when the old ones are hopeless.

I am baffled by this:
"a publisher whose open world games often seem intent on wasting your time. … it's been the most fun I've had with one of these games since Far Cry 3"
FC3 was the most time-wasting of the FC games, except for FC2 probably, so that makes no sense.

This quote seems sort of weird to me, too. I didn't think any of the recent FC games were intent on wasting my time. The Ubisoft games most known for that are the Assassin's Creed games and definitely The Crew games.

They should be sorted whenever it comes time to play this

Maybe. Without Steam there's no one getting openly mad about it. There are no metacritic user reviews and a lot of the professional reviews just mention performance problems in passing if they mention it at all. The reviewers probably don't have potatoes, which is actually sort of a problem. I didn't have any performance problems on my system, and I cranked the settings all the way up. Of course, I wasn't benchmarking. But it's clear that people with low-end systems are really struggling.

In something that I think is weird, though, there are 66 professional PC reviews, 1 pro PS5 review and 0 pro Xbox reviews.

 

[DXCHASE]

I actually like Primal and from what i see here its like Primal but set on Pandora with some guns.

 

[ZedClampet]

Did a couple of missions today. First one was pure FC. Was directed to take out a drilling operation. The world is hard to traverse, at least before you unlock some of the movement stuff. The mission area was about 400 meters away, and I probably traveled 2000, including a lot of swimming, due to the verticality of the map. I just couldn't figure out how to get up there. There were none of the vines. I spent a good amount of time parkouring around on these fungi growing out of the side of trees, but that didn't get me anywhere. Finally found a place where you could get up the mountain in a conventional way.

I had crafted all the regular arrows and explosive arrows I could carry. I arrived at the spot and there were a few people, 3 mechs and basically no cover. I'm sure someone could stealth it, but I'm not that someone, so I switched to the explosive arrows and crouch-walked my way to the closest mech and took it out, which of course alerted the entire universe. I started running and took out the second and third mechs, which left me with normal arrows, so that was it for the bow. I pulled out my light machine gun and went after the soldiers. That was when I noticed the "Reinforcements arriving in 20 seconds" message. Ugh. I'm not sure whether there were FC-like alarms I could have taken out or what, but it didn't matter, I quickly killed the remaining humans and looked for some natural land cover to wait for the reinforcements. My plan was to pick them off one at a time as they came around the hill, but only one of them came around the hill, and I had to chase down the rest. Fortunately, there was no second wave of reinforcements. I looted the bodies (you just have to walk up to them) and opened a couple of chests and then set about destroying the drills and hacking into the system. Not sure why I had to hack the system since I was leaving the whole thing a twisted pile of metal (with the help of some more explosive arrows), but that's what it told me to do.

The second mission was basically just attending a gathering, which again was an absolute chore for me to get to. I'm assuming better players somehow simply walked right up to both locations, and that I'm just specially challenged. But when I finished the gathering, I was given double-jump, which should help me out some.

One more note, my character had to eat--a lot. As I left the gathering I had no more food left, which determines your stamina and maybe health regen. Of course, most people probably didn't swim past California on the way to Maine.

 

[ZedClampet]

Played some more. I think this is probably a very good game, but mostly for people other than me. I'm just not good at navigating when there's this much verticality that has no paths to go up by foot. It's a beautiful and complex world, but you have to know your limitations. If I were 3 feet tall I wouldn't try to play basketball, and in this case, my visual processing and patience are just no match for the challenge.

Plus, this is at heart an explore the beautiful world game. I really don't like exploring for the sake of looking at pretty pixels. Lots of people love it, but it just isn't my style. I know a lot of people here enjoy it, including @Brian Boru , but it's just not something I want to do. When someone tells me to go to a mission area, I just want to get to the mission area.

In something like Atlas, I'll travel to each of the 700 islands and search them step by step looking for all the countless unique materials needed for the nearly 1000 crafting recipes (and with mods close to 2000). I need these materials and recipes to build incredible pirate ships that can take on entire armadas with a kraken or two thrown in for good measure. I need them to build an elaborate base to house all the different crafting tables and to create a kitchen to cook the many different foods. I need them for gardens, for decorations, etc, But in games like this, I'm mostly just being forced to explore to get to mission zones. Sure, there are a few crafting materials on the way, but they are all over the place and my pouches are always full.

Anyway, I can see that it's a very good game. I'm just not sure it's for me. If I could fast travel to the mission zones, I might stay up all night playing it. Unfortunately for me, that kind of play isn't supported.

 

[Brian Boru]

that kind of play isn't supported

Pending modding community magic, do either of these help?

How to Find and Fly the Ikran - Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Guide - IGN

The Ikran are flying creatures native to Pandora, and are abundant in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. As you traverse the Western Frontier, your Na’vi

www.ign.com

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertain...ing-problem-with-open-world-games/ar-AA1kThFT

 

[Colif]

I really don't like exploring for the sake of looking at pretty pixels.

It sounds like you were right, its not a game for you. This games looks scream pretty pixels. Digital Foundries review was obvious as soon as I saw game. Graphics is all you need. Another game using UE5 as a crutch...

 

[ZedClampet]

Pending modding community magic, do either of these help?

How to Find and Fly the Ikran - Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Guide - IGN

The Ikran are flying creatures native to Pandora, and are abundant in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. As you traverse the Western Frontier, your Na’vi

www.ign.com

MSN

I'll read that, but I think it will be awhile before i can get the flying mount, and I've also had a bit of a change of heart on travel (see below).

It sounds like you were right, its not a game for you. This games looks scream pretty pixels. Digital Foundries review was obvious as soon as I saw game. Graphics is all you need. Another game using UE5 as a crutch...

I may have been too hasty last night. There's actually a lot of depth to this game that I couldn't see from my frustration at being unable to traverse the world (see below)

TLDR: I decided to relax and now I'm really enjoying the game.

*** @Brian Boru Before I ramble on and forget, I experimented during a random encounter with the Easy difficulty, but this game's Easy reminds me of Ghost Recon Breakpoint in that it is practically impossible to die and killing stuff is a breeze. You and I both occasionally play on Easy but 20 years from now when you play this, you might want to try Normal, as Easy presents no challenge at all.***

Okay, well, I was mostly frustrated last night when I posted. The main reason for my frustration was trying to unlock co-op as fast as possible and running into a bunch of barriers to doing that.

This morning I knew I only had two missions left. One of them was timed and involved travel, which is why I quit last night, but this morning I decided I'd just do it how many ever times that it took. I immediately took off in the wrong direction, tried to make a jump and died. I went the right way the second time, made it to the mission zone on time and completed it. It was a defense mission, very familiar for FC players.

So now all I had to do was one more quest, and it was just to travel to an area, untimed, and talk to someone. This made me relax. I still had no food and couldn't craft any more ammo, so I started looking around and looting the bodies.

Eventually I started making my way casually toward the objective, using my Navi sight very frequently to find resources and stuff to kill. This is when I started to realize how deep the game was, and I really started to enjoy myself.

Wherever you are, you can use the Navi sight, and it will hone in on these special plants (if they are anywhere near you) that are hidden away and which will give you skill points. The skill point system is pretty extensive, maybe more than in any FC game, and I spent a lot of time reading through the options.

I found a lot of cooking ingredients and crafting supplies and realized that these systems were very deep, as well. I took a long and relaxing trip to the objective, taking every resource I could carry, and had a lot of fun doing it.

When I got there, I found the crafting and cooking tables. I got a new bow recipe from a woman and crafted it. The crafted quality was low because my materials weren't the best, but the bow did more damage than my current one, so I was happy. This particular bow could use poison arrows, but I was unable to craft any just yet. I also couldn't craft any clothes because I hadn't collected enough of the right hides, but having been in-game hungry for the last hour, I had collected a ton of cooking ingredients.

You discover cooking recipes by simply putting various ingredients together and cooking them. As far as I can tell, you can't really fail at cooking. I made a ton of food. I have food that boosts my health, that boosts my resistance and that boosts my damage. I also had a moldy egg and made a meal that produces an upset stomach. I ate that immediately just to get rid of the constant "hunger" message and since I wasn't doing anything serious that an upset stomach might interfere with.

I didn't really seem to have much in the way of a mission. I knew I was supposed to hunt to improve my standing with the clan, so I wandered back to the cave entrance and looked out at the beautiful world, and this time I saw many potential paths to take.

That's when I realized I had reached that magic moment when I would play this game even without Guido.

 

[Brian Boru]

20 years from now when you play this, you might want to try Normal, as Easy presents no challenge at all.

Hey, I'm hopeful of at least a free weekend this decade

I almost always start with Easy to see what the game is about. That's the quickest if the game is not for me, I don't waste time finding out. If it is a keeper, then it's also the quickest way to learn the game systems and mechanics—at which stage it's time to start a new game on whatever difficulty seems most interesting. Or with a complex game, enables focusing on one aspect to learn it—eg turn off war in Civ to experiment with the different economic systems.

Glad to hear it looks like a good one for you, enjoy

 

[Colif]

i was waiting for this review

 

[ZedClampet]

In what can only be described as the greatest miracle in modern gaming history, I parkoured flawlessly for about 45 minutes straight to reach the very, very high altitude area and get my flying mount. The fact that I didn't fall 2000 meters to my death at least once is baffling to me.

 

[ZedClampet]

I amazed Guido yesterday. After my solo time spent doing everything by the Moron Code, I learned that under certain circumstances, you could climb up cliffs. They have to be just right, though.

So Guido and I were playing, and, as usual, the game had put a mountain between us and where we needed to go. We were running along the base of the mountain when I saw an area I thought I could climb. Guido said, "How are you doing that?" I told him, "The usual way, spamming space bar. Just go up exactly where I did."

***

@Brian Boru bad news. I did a quest, and the guy showed me how to pray after a kill. Now my character does it every time. Once he was so long-winded I almost got killed by another animal. It's every bit as annoying as the PCG writer said it was, and maybe more. I have a tendency to loot things as I kill them even if there are more things needing killing. Definitely can't do that now that every kill requires a solemn ceremony.

 

[Brian Boru]

bad news

Nah, there'll be a mod for that by the time the game is worth replaying.

i was waiting for this review

Why? He provides the warning label in the first para—"am fed up of these".

Like if I was to review Baldur's Gate—"It's an RPG, I hate these".
If you were an RPG player, I assume you'd give my review the downvote it deserved?

 

[ZedClampet]

Why? He provides the warning label in the first para—"am fed up of these".

Like if I was to review Baldur's Gate—"It's an RPG, I hate these".
If you were an RPG player, I assume you'd give my review the downvote it deserved?

Very unprofessional. Definitely wouldn't watch this guy's reviews.

 

[ZedClampet]

So this game doesn't have any of Ubisoft's sense of humor in it. It's deadly serious. But there is one thing that is incidentally hilarious.

The map is quite vertical and you have your flying mount. Well, if you are falling, you can press "H" and your mount comes and swoops you out of the air. You can use this to get on your mount quickly if you are up high. It's absolutely hilarious when it doesn't work, though, and you weren't quite high up enough or your mount was a split second late. Or maybe there was a ledge beneath you that you didn't see.

"Mount! To me!"

*jumps off cliff*

SPLAT!

*Mount buzzes your body*

 

[DXCHASE]

My time with this game thus far (and only until the end of my ubisoft+ sub) has been pretty good! Im running it with a 4070 (for the time being)/12700k 32gb 6600mhz ddr5 oc'd though.

First off, it is a beautiful game. I kinda just walk around and admire the scenery. Im getting better FPS with AMDs software instead of nvidias i notice too, you cant turn on frame generation unless you have the AMD option on. Anyways, I grabbed some screenshots real quick nothing fancy:

I like the avatar universe so all the complaints are noted but im liking the avatar part of the game. I liked Primal and im getting that vibe here. I can get lost just running around still.

As for the weapons combat...could be better, i dont like how powers are just "carry more ammo" either.

The story so far is ok i kinda figured the story was gonna be like "hey these invaders are bad, they kill our planet, kill them first" anyways and it seems like that atm.

7/10 so far.

 

[ZedClampet]

Need to play this some more. We got distracted with other games, but I had just finished crafting a much better bow and still want to try it out. I strongly suggest not ignoring the crafting in this game.