Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™

If you're a fan of the franchise or you like to explore beautiful open worlds and don't mind Ubisoft's game design, then I'd suggest trying out Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. This game gets a lot of unnecessary hate just because it's made by Ubisoft. Not that there aren't many valid reasons to hate Ubisoft, and Avatar: FoP definitely faults from many of the common complaints regarding their game design: repetitive and formulaic gameplay, lifeless NPCs, much of the voice acting could be better, and the writing and story are lacking (which is disappointing because they could have done more with the subject matter and themes, but to be fair, that same criticism applies to the Avatar movies.) With all that being said, Avatar: FoP works well enough for what it's supposed to be. Especially when playing in the first-person perspective as the game was designed around, the world is very immersive. The sheer level of graphical detail is genuinely impressive. Because of that, you need a powerful device to run it. This game is very GPU intensive and it shows. I will admit it initially took me a while to get into the gameplay. Running and jumping around the beautiful world is fine and all, but without attachment to the story or gameplay loop, it did take more patience for me to stick around. Eventually it clicked and I found myself enjoying the game and getting at least a little bit more interested in the story whenever something actually happened. (The From the Ashes DLC improves the story a lot with its dramatic tonal shift and more engaging cinematic experience.) Overall, give it a try if you're curious. If you already know you hate the Ubisoft format and aren't willing to give the game a fair chance, then don't even bother with it. It's a decent game that looks amazing, and while it could definitely be better, it works well enough for what it is. Note: I first played Avatar: FoP and all the DLC on PS5, then bought it again on Steam so I could play when I'm not at home. As annoying as Ubisoft Connect is, I do like that my save files are synced. Unfortunately, my achievements are not (hence why at the time of writing this, it looks like I haven't even finished the game.)