The Avatar franchise is all about nature and conservation. While its approach may not be entirely original, the two James Cameron Avatar movies essentially revolve around this core concept of preservation, with Jake Sully and the rest of the Na'vi having to repeatedly fight against the RDA who pollute and destroy the planet of Pandora to serve its own means. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora hears this message loud and clear and embraces it fully, delivering another story centered around the greed of humanity and the fight to save nature.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's main story sees players take control of a Na'vi who was kidnapped by humans at a young age and separated from their now-long lost Sarentu clan. Breaking free from their RDA prison as an adult, the player-character must now reconnect with their home planet of Pandora, and fight back against its RDA invaders to try and restore the planet to its natural state. With a story all about nature, it's only natural that animals play a major role in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, though animal lovers are in for a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

Related

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Sets The Perfect Blueprint That Star Wars Outlaws Shouldn't Follow

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora fully embraces the Ubisoft open-world formula, and while it works, Star Wars Outlaws shouldn't follow in its footsteps.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Puts Animal Lovers Through the Wringer

One Early Avatar Moment Packs a Surprisingly Big Punch

Pretty early on in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's main story, after the player has escaped from their RDA home and gotten to explore the gorgeous world of Pandora a bit, players will be introduced to the first of three brand-new Na'vi clans that the game introduces to the canon. This first Na'vi clan is called the Aranahe, and though they have some warriors among them, it's mainly a tribe of peaceful silk-weavers. In an attempt to recruit them to help in the fight against the RDA, the player goes off to find the clan's best hunter, Eetu.

From the get-go, Eetu's bond with his Ikran, Zomey, is put front and center, with Eetu making constant references to his Ikran's well-being. A few missions later, Eetu goes missing, and the player needs to track them down. Players find Eetu trapped inside a downed RDA dropship, and must help him escape. While players take down RDA soldiers, Zomey flies by herself above, taking down any gunships that appear. After rescuing Eetu, the player goes in search of Zomey, who has seemingly disappeared.

The player finds Zomey on the top of a small mountain ridge, too wounded to move. When Eetu gets there, all he can do is hold her as she takes her final breath. It's an incredibly emotive scene, and it coming so early on in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora just serves to make the scene even more shocking and upsetting. But this sequence isn't just used for shock value.

Right before Zomey dies, Eetu makes an impassioned speech about the bond that he and his Ikran share, and how the player-character could not know of its importance as they've not experienced it themselves. The player then sees first-hand how losing this bond feels, setting up the gravity of a Na'vi-Ikran bond very well. Just a few missions later, the player makes the journey to bond with their own Ikran, and with Eetu accompanying them every step of the way, the importance of this upcoming bond is repeated over and over again, giving the sequence a level of tension and drama that might not have been there otherwise.

Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora

Developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an open-world game set within James Cameron's popular Avatar universe. The title highlights a new region of Pandora called the Western Frontier.

Platform(s)

PC , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

December 7, 2023

Developer(s)

Massive Entertainment

Publisher(s)

Ubisoft

Genre(s)

Action-Adventure