Summary
- One mechanic makes Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora stand out, offering a direct and immersive way to explore the lush world of Pandora.
- Many open-world games opt for gliding or limited aerial options, making Avatar's systems a refreshing choice.
- This mechanic will allow players to navigate dense jungles and diverse terrain without sacrificing speed or forcing awkward traversal methods.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has some high hurdles to clear if it wants to stand out as one of the best open-world game experiences, but one decision already gives it an edge that's lacking in many competitors. Based on the world of James Cameron's Avatar films, Frontiers of Pandora tells a new story in the same lush environment set amid the conflict between the Na'vi and the colonizing force of the RDA. By nature of the source material, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is aiming for visual splendor, and finding the right gameplay to show that off could make it great.
Traversal options are a huge part of open-world games, as exploring gigantic maps can go from exhilarating to tiring if mobility options are poor. Fast travel tends to be little more than a band-aid solution, as a well-designed world and mechanics should incentivize going from place to place for the sheer joy of exploration. There are a number of potential ways to tackle this challenge, but Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora finds one of the most direct solutions with the inclusion of flight mechanics as a core aspect of the game.
Flight Makes Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora Stand Out
Flying in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is made possible through the inclusion of ikran, the winged creatures native to Pandora that the RDA refers to as banshees. Like in the films, Na'vi can bond with ikran to form a mutual trust that allows them to take to the skies atop the ikran's backs. Achieving this in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora requires the protagonist to ascend the floating mountains where the creatures roost. From that point onward, the ikran is available in much the same way as a horse might be in many open-world games and can be quickly mounted when summoned.
It's possible to jump off an ikran's back before actually landing in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, making quick dismounts easy.
An ikran serves as more than just a general option for mobility, as flight is also incorporated into some specific action sequences of the game. An Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora preview exhibited a mission that required landing on RDA aerial platforms and taking down challenging helicopters from atop the ikran, providing an element of dogfight gameplay. Flight also adds an extra bit of verticality to base infiltration missions, where taking down tech on top of a tower can be achieved without the long climb more common in some other Ubisoft titles.
Proper Flight Is Rare In Open-World Games
Although plenty of recent open-world games have featured aerial options, few have gone as far as Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is willing to. The standard seems to be gliding rather than flying, perhaps most famously implemented in service of the "open-air" Hyrule found in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Other games like Genshin Impact and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have followed similar tacks, with Marvel's Spider-Man 2 most recently adding a wingsuit feature as a complement to the general web-slinging traversal.
Gliding can be fun in its own right, but it offers radically limited agency compared to a full flight system. In a game like Tears of the Kingdom that offers a number of ways to shoot to great heights before gliding, the mobility options are still generally excellent. Most titles, however, offer less dynamic ways to mesh systems together, making gliding feel comparatively inert and often leaving it with limited applicability. Sticking to gliding makes sense in something like the Batman: Arkham games where it directly fits the lore, but characters that could feasibly access a means of flight feel disappointing when that option isn't on the table.
Games that do offer proper flight tend to do it in a less direct way than Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, making use of vehicles rather than a method as direct as hopping on an ikran's back. Flying a plane or a helicopter in something like Grand Theft Auto or Far Cry is fun, but it's more of a specific diversion than a seamless way to navigate the world. Proper open-air flight that can quickly take off and land from small platforms or clearings opens up significantly more possibilities than airborne vehicles do, giving the fantastic elements of Avatar an edge that isn't possible in games with more grounded settings.
Flying Is Perfect For The Frontiers Of Pandora Setting
The benefits of flight become especially obvious in the world of Pandora, which is dense with the flora, fauna, and diverse terrain that the Avatar films depict. Navigating dense jungles on foot or on the back of a pa'li (Pandora's equivalent of a horse) isn't likely to be as seamless as running across the wide open plains that dominate many open-world games. Offering flight as an alternative makes it possible to maintain that density without making travel frustratingly slow, which also dodges the likelihood of players attempting to force horses up mountains to humorous or frustrating results.
One potential downside to allowing flight is disincentivizing overworld traversal too thoroughly, as an entire dimension of gameplay could be lost if players ultimately defaulted to taking to the skies. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora should hopefully be able to avoid this by using its flora and fauna to its advantage, as missions focused on gathering unique alien plants and hunting or helping animals require feet on the ground. If the game can strike the right balance, it could have two equally valuable ways to experience Pandora, giving an extra kick to exploration and discovery.
Leaving flight off the table would have been a major loss for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, as the thrill of taking to the sky is a major highlight in James Cameron's films. Luckily, this feature is set to give the games a unique edge, and any potential drawbacks that it could have should be manageable through thoughtful game design. Gliding is getting a little stale in open-world games, but being able to truly soar on the back of an ikran could be one of the highlights of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
