Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora: Release date, gameplay, & everything we know

Here's all the latest news and updates on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Ubisoft’s open-world first-person adventure game coming out this December.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora: Release date, gameplay, & everything we know
Heidi Nicholas

Heidi Nicholas & Ian Stokes

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Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is undoubtedly going to be Ubisoft’s biggest release of 2023. This brand new, open-world adventure game is being developed by Massive Entertainment, the team behind The Division. Frontiers of Pandora tells a brand new story in the Avatar universe.

Avatar made waves last year with the release of the sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, which was highly rated by critics and audiences alike. While not directly connected, Frontiers of Pandora was meant to be part of that second surge for the franchise as it was originally planned for release in late 2022. Despite the setback, the wait is almost over and we’ll soon be able to drop into Pandora and experience the Na’vi culture. Exploring, communing with nature, blowing military aircraft out of the sky — all that good stuff. And judging from the recently released trailers, it’s going to be glorious.

Massive is a busy studio at the moment, as they’re also working on the upcoming open-world Star Wars Outlaws. You know what they say about massive sci-fi franchises — you wait ages to develop a game for one and then two come along at once. With the release of Frontiers of Pandora later this year, stick with us for all the latest Avatar news, along with our review of the game when it lands in December.

Update: This article was updated on November 27 to reflect the new post-launch content details Ubisoft shared. We also checked all the other content to make sure it was up to date and accurate.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora release date

avatar frontiers of pandora

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora launched on December 7, 2023.

It had originally been announced as a 2022 release when it was revealed back at E3 2021, but Ubisoft revealed that the launch had been pushed back during their 2022 Q1 earnings call. The original plan was almost certainly to have it release around the same time as the second Avatar movie, Avatar: The Way of Water, which premiered on December 6, 2022.

What platforms is Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora available on?

avatar frontiers of pandora snowdrop

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is launched for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and via streaming on Amazon Luna.

It will be a current generation exclusive, which means you can’t play Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora natively on Xbox One.

What is the story of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora?

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora screenshot showing a Na'vi flying on an Ikran.

The game is set after the first Avatar film. In the trailers we learn that the RDA has moved out to the Western Frontier, where John Mercer (an RDA leader) abducts several Na’vi children, including our character, with the idea of raising them to fight against their own people.

The Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains interrupts their efforts, and the RDA’s orders are to kill all the Na’vi children. The children are saved by their teacher, who puts them all into cryosleep for 15 years. When we wake up, we have to immerse ourselves back into Na’vi culture to gain the trust of the clans and have them help in the fight against the RDA.

While it is connected to the events of the movies, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a standalone story within the Avatar universe so we’re not expecting to see many other connections to the mainline story. Don’t expect Jake Sully to pop up in a cutscene (though anything’s possible if Ubisoft decided to pull its wallet out).

What type of game is Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora?

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora screenshot showing a battle from first-person perspective.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an upcoming first-person open-world action-adventure game, featuring a new standalone story, set in Pandora. It’s developed by Ubisoft studio Massive Entertainment in collaboration with Disney and James Cameron’s company Lightstorm Entertainment.

From the gameplay clips we’ve seen, it looks like it shares a lot of its DNA with the Far Cry series, as you’re going to explore the vast open-world and liberate it from the human-invaders of the Resources Development Administration (RDA). You’ll also be able to tame and ride local wildlife, including the Pterodactyl-like Ikran and Direhorses. These creatures will help you traverse the vast open world and can even aid you in combat.

A big part of that story is our character having been abducted and brought up by the RDA, and then returned to the Na’vi, so a key gameplay aspect is implementing those different combat styles. We’ll have Na’vi weapons like the longbow and staff sling for traps, as well as RDA equipment such as assault rifles, shotguns, and even rocket launchers.

Na’vi are shown to be much stronger than humans and with keener instincts, which makes the usual Ubisoft “scan for enemies” superpower seem a little more reasonable. You can highlight enemies and check for their weak points, while your physical strength also comes into play; the game overview trailer shows a Na’vi physically ripping a human out of their AMP unit. There will also be aerial combat with your ikran (which you can name, feed, and customise), like in both the movies. You’ll be able to craft gear and weapons, and make and cook meals “to get stronger.”

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora screenshot showing one of the wild creatures native to the planet.

We can take down RDA settlements scattered across Pandora’s Western Frontier too. These settlements won’t just be a visual element, either, as aside from wanting to get rid of RDA invaders, clearing settlements and their pollution brings another bonus for your character: you can get higher-quality resources again. Speaking to Press Start, creative director Magnus Jensen says the RDA’s pollution is tied to the gameplay as it “shuts down Na’vi camps you’d otherwise access for missions and gear… that same pollution can also taint something you might really want for crafting or cooking.”

With some Ubisoft games, like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, showering you in loot and new gear to haul around Ancient Greece, associate game director Rechner says (in an interview with Digital Trends) that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has an “ethos of quality over quantity.” Rechner explains how players will learn alongside their character about “what it means to exist in harmony with Eywa and Pandora.

Can you customise your character in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora?

avatar frontiers of pandora

Yes — Ubisoft’s Lucy O’Brien confirmed our character will be customizable, and that we’ll be able to choose between different options for things like body types, voices, and body paint.

Can you play as a human in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora?

We’ve seen a lot of people asking whether you can play as a human in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The short answer is no, not for the full game anyway. The core gameplay looks to be centred around your Na’vi character.

Is Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora multiplayer?

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora can be played solo or in two-player online co-op. We don’t have any more details than that at the moment; no word on if progression will be tracked for both players, or if it’s more of a drop-in and help out style of multiplayer.

Is there any post-launch content planned for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora?

Yes. Ubisoft has already outlined post-launch Season Pass content for the game. With the Season Pass, which is included with the Gold and Ultimate editions of the game, you get story packs, a bonus quest, and more.

The bonus quest will be available at launch. Then there are two story packs confirmed so far: The Sky Breaker arrives in summer 2024, followed by Secrets of the Spires in fall 2024. The Sky Breaker revolves around a story featuring the RDA and the Zeswa clan, while Secrets of the Spires takes you to a new canyon region and has a big focus on aerial battles. The Season Pass also gets you the Resistance equipment pack and the Banshee cosmetic set.

What are the different editions I can get for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora?

There's the Standard Edition, which comes with just the base game, for $69.99 / £69.99. Then there's the Gold Edition, which comes with the base game and the Season Pass for $109.99 / £94.99. Lastly, the Ultimate Edition comes with the base game, the Season Pass, the Ultimate pack, and the digital artbook. That Ultimate pack includes the Sarentu Heritage Cosmetic Pack and the Sarentu Hunter Equipment Pack. The Ultimate Edition is priced at $129.99 / £114.99.

Amazon also has its own Limited Edition — it's priced the same as the Standard Edition at $69.99, but also seems to include the Sarentu Hunter Equipment Pack from the Ultimate Edition.

Does Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora have any preorder bonuses?

Yes — if you preorder any edition, you'll get the Child of Two Worlds pack with a character cosmetic set and a weapon skin.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora achievement list

The Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora achievement list isn’t out in the wild yet, but we’ll keep you posted as soon as we get an update.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora trailers

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was first shown off to the world on June 12, 2021 at E3 2021. The first look trailer was a scripted, CG trailer showing us what to expect from the full release, featuring that blend of epic battles, serene exploration and bonding with nature that we’ve come to expect from the franchise:
We’d have to wait quite a while for our next glimpse of Pandora, which turned up on June 12, 2023 at the Ubisoft Forward. Here we got to see a clearer look at the gameplay with some first-person footage, along with a deeper look at the story and world.
Finally, we had the official story trailer which dropped on Sept 15, 2023. This gives a comprehensive overview of the story for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, showcasing your character’s kidnapping and RDA upbringing, before showing them on their journey to rediscover their people.
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Written by Heidi Nicholas
Heidi tends to lean towards indie games, RPGs, and open-world games on Xbox, and when not playing Disney Dreamlight Valley, happily installs every new wholesome game that appears on Xbox Game Pass, before diving back into favorites like The Witcher 3. She's looking forward to Age of Mythology Retold, Everwild, Fable, and Avowed on the Xbox horizon. Heidi graduated with an MA in English Literature before joining the TrueAchievements team.
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