Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora impressions — Flying high on Xbox and in Co-Op!

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a game I have been excited about for a long while now! Living in the world of Pandora seemed like such a giant task. Gaming Trend editor David Flynn had the task of reviewing this game on PC (which you can take a look here). I had the opportunity to take a look at the Xbox version of the game, and it doesn’t disappoint.

In his review, David did a great job of telling you what the game is about and how it feels playing through it. I’ll have to agree with him that the story is pretty straightforward similar to the movies, but WOW does it look absolutely amazing. As soon as I sat down, I told my partner how excited I was about just hearing what Pandora sounds like in the game. It doesn’t disappoint. The sights and sounds are something to behold in Frontiers of Pandora.

You start out for the first 3-6 hours walking around a smaller area of Pandora learning all the details of being Na’vi. It’s a little slow, but it does give you almost everything you’ll need to try and survive. However, as soon as you get your Ikran, that’s when this game… takes flight! I went from exploring a small area of the map to really having such a huge open world to explore. This was such an exciting moment for me in the game. It was pretty much everything I was expecting from an Avatar game. Exploring a beautiful world, blowing up colonizer machines, and flying through the air, trees, mountain ranges. It’s beautiful.

Co-Op is an interesting time for sure (see our video showcasing a side mission and destruction of an RDA mining facility). This game is fully cross-platform, using your Ubisoft account as the connecting force. One thing to make your lives easier: if you’re trying to play with someone on another platform, make sure to friend them beforehand in the Ubisoft App. That will make it so they show right up on your friends list. There isn’t really a great way to friend someone from the XBOX specifically on another platform. Meanwhile, you can easily add anyone who’s an XBOX friend without doing that.

While playing with fellow GamingTrend editor David Flynn, we realized that the level of the opponent doesn’t scale to the highest leveled player, but the world in which the host resides. So when David joined me, things were way easier for me given that he’s beaten the game fully whereas I was still working on it at the time of the recording. He was able to one-shot bosses that were two levels above me, making it so simple to get past some of the tasks that were getting frustrating (as we’ll talk more about in a bit). While this makes things quite easy, it will probably be more fun for everyone to start on the same level and work together from the time you can start Co-Op.

There wasn’t any staggering on my part, and I didn’t hear any complaints on David’s side either. Even with another person on the server, everything stayed pretty steady. On that topic, the Xbox Series X version of Avatar is pretty steady except for very specific instances. Going in and out of the Headquarters or Home Tree tends to have some lag spikes as it’s loading the insides of those buildings. Given how dense the forest is and how lovely Pandora is in general with wildlife, this is something I can live with given I felt no lag while flying, swimming, parkouring, etc. in the wilds of Pandora.

This game is HARD from a difficulty perspective. I’ve played many a Far Cry game and I’ve played many a Sci-Fi game. This has to be one of the toughest games I’ve played in the genre to date. I’m not “bad” at shooters by any means, but this game wants you to try and find creative ways to solve problems. Early on, there’s a lot of sneaking that can be done to avoid a firefight. But this isn’t a game where one bad guy attacks you at a time. If you get caught you have anywhere between 5-30 enemies shooting at you while rocket launchers are trying to kill your Ikran. Make a plan every time and you’ll be fine. Go in trying to rush and you’ll be playing the mission over and over.

I really enjoyed my time playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. It’ll be something I’m excited to keep completing and showing friends when they visit. It’s something that “feels” good from the movement on the ground to the flying far above. And obliterating RDA has never felt so good.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is available now on PC, Xbox Series X and S, and Playstation 5.

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