The latest from Ubisoft Massive, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a gargantuan game world that looks stunning in practically every frame and goes the extra mile to fill it with exceptional detail. Where it begins to lose a lot of its steam from the opening moments is with its mechanics and structure which have not been iterated on since Far Cry. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, despite its beautiful game world and decent movement controls, falls apart at critical moments and does very little to be more than the standard Ubisoft open-world shooter.

The Far Cry comparisons are inevitable as the game practically wears the skeleton of the franchise underneath its Na'vi skin. If you've played a Far Cry game before- you're going to find yourself at home clearing outposts across the map while you join some kind of resistance group against the baddies. The game attempts to put an Avatar spin on things with quasi-survival mechanics such as Food and Energy. Unfortunately, the mechanics ring hollow and don't carry much importance outside of forcing your character to retreat every once in a while to pop a fruit while being shot at by a mech.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a solid game in isolation but it is severely weighed down by the game's refusal to grow past the tried-and-tested open-world game formula that has haunted every major franchise by Ubisoft. 

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora; Na'vi Far Cry 

Gameplay

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora takes a little while to get going, but immediately, it's made clear that Ubisoft Massive has nailed the movement controls for the Na'vi. As a young Na'vi, you will be towering over human characters by a lot and it translates to the movement as well. The movement feels both fluid and quick even when playing on a controller and the sense of pace as you string multiple moves together as you traverse through the map feels decent. The movement controls begin to show cracks around the 2-hour mark as traversing long distances across the map becomes a lot more tedious. The game also takes its sweet time in introducing your Ikari (your flying mount), at around the 5-hour mark. But by then, players are liable to have grown tired of a system that once felt good at around the 1-hour mark. 

The shooting suffers a similar problem as it doesn't feel outright inadequate at first, but by the 4-hour mark, it becomes a lot more tedious than it felt earlier in the game. The primary weapons at your disposal are an Assault Rifle, a Heavy Bow, and a Light Bow. While the bows sound great and feel adequately powerful, they begin to lose their novelty when going up against multiple mechs simultaneously in a medium-sized arena.

Speaking of combat arenas, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, doesn't do nearly as much to distinguish itself from the likes of Far Cry in terms of world design, level structure, or progression. This is most apparent in the standard "Clear the Outpost" level structure first introduced in Far Cry 3. Even though the game has decent individual parts, it rarely ever comes together in one glorious moment a la the gladiator level in Far Cry 4 or Blackbeard's farewell in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. 

For the most part, individual pieces of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora feel great but the lack of cohesion between systems and mechanics is what ultimately led to none of my sessions with the game lasting for longer than an hour and a half. It also doesn't help that the characters in the game have very little for you to latch on to and are often vessels for exposition. 

Even though the campaign feels like a bit of a let-down, there is a good game here somewhere, based on its strong movement controls and fairly responsive parkour-y traversal across the map. I was not able to try out the co-op mode, but there is a good chance that the game takes on another shape entirely when experienced alongside friends and other players. 

Story 

It has been my long-held belief that Ubisoft open-world titles live and die by the effectiveness of their narrative. In terms of mechanics, every Far Cry game after Far Cry 3 has been virtually identical save for the introduction of a minor mechanic here and there. The differentiator, then, comes from how effectively the narrative can motivate the player to go from one same-y quest to the other. For instance, Far Cry 4's narrative was one of the more compelling reasons I was able to get through a lot of the tedium of the campaign. 

The same works the other way around as one of the biggest reasons Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's campaign felt like it dragged a tad bit too much was it couldn't effectively deliver the gravity of the situation or populate the world with interesting characters. The story follows a young Na'vi kid kidnapped by the RDA to be part of the The Ambassador Program (essentially Na'vi child soldiers trained by the RDA), who then fight their way to freedom and join the resistance against the RDA.

It doesn't help that the game telegraphs the villain with a gigantic menacing horn as soon as he walks into the frame in the first 20 seconds of the game. This means that the game trades nuance for a quick way to get a reaction out of the player. Sadly, because the villain and his motivation lack very little nuance, there is a strong chance players will not feel nearly as motivated to take down the dozens of medium-sized outposts strewn all across Pandora. 

The campaign is about 18-20 hours long, but feels more like 30 given the gigantic scale of the world and the jagged pacing of the story. While there was nothing egregiously bad about the story and narrative - it wasn't particularly memorable either. Save for about 4 great cinematic set-pieces across the campaign, there is very little about the campaign I can recall off the top of my head. 

Graphics, Performance, Sound Design

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an undeniable technical marvel by Ubisoft Massive and its visual and audio presentation impresses in practically every single moment of gameplay. Built on Ubisoft Massive's proprietary Snowdrop engine, the game world looks nigh perfect in nearly every lighting condition. The game looks particularly great at night, thanks to the bioluminescent flora. The sound of a dozen species all around you on a set of great speakers or a pair of headphones is some of the best audio design work I've experienced this side of The Last of Us Part II.

Frontiers of Pandora is a great case for studios to develop games on their proprietary engine should their budgets allow as each bit of the game world feels hand-crafted with exceptional attention to detail. In all my time with the game, I experienced no crashes or virtual artefacts save for a couple during particularly busy scenes. Now and then, the weather would change a little too dramatically, but those instances were rare enough for it to not be a massive nuisance. 

The game runs a steady 60 frames per second at Performance Mode and the Quality Mode looks just as pretty as it should at native 4K. Given the game's movement and swift animations, a 120 FPS mode on the console would have been appreciated, but, it isn't essential to the experience. 

Final Word: Avatar Frontiers of Pandora 

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is not exactly ambitious in terms of game design or level structure, but it is a good first step for Ubisoft Massive to build upon in a future sequel or online game mode. The game's faults mainly come from its resistance to growing past the boundaries of the standard Ubisoft open-world game, but it is an issue that can be overcome in future entries should Ubisoft deem the franchise worthy of a sequel.

The game is the definitive Avatar experience, given that it is one of two games available for the IP and this is the more refined and polished one. Speaking of polish, it does feel the game has received the due time and care that it needed and that is thoroughly appreciated. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has a decent game in it somewhere, but one that is under the rubble of the Ubisoft open-world game structure. However, Ubisoft Massive deserves praise for a highly polished, great-looking, AAA game that delivers the kind of visual and sonic experience that is expected off of AAA studios. 

Sega’s popular Virtua Fighter series is set to make a return, the publisher has confirmed, some 18 years after the launch of its most recent numbered installment, Virtua Fighter 5.

Since then, there’ve been numerous updated releases of Virtua Fighter 5 with 2021’s Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, itself a remaster of the earlier Final Showdown, alongside mobile installments, and even an arcade update for Virtual Fighter 3. What’s missing from the series, though, is a brand-new game.

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What To Expect From Sega’s New Virtua Game

Sega’s new global head of transmedia, Justin Scarpone, has offered some hope in an interview with VGC. "So we have a suite of titles in development right now that fall into that legacy bucket," he explained, "which we announced last year at The Game Awards; Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi."

"And we have another Virtua Fighter being developed," Scrapone added, before covering over the revelation completely, "And then in certain instances, we're also doing animation series, or live-action films to augment that and be part of those roadmaps."

Despite announcing a plethora of legacy game revivals last year - including Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, Golden Axe, “and more” - details remain limited. Sega has shared a little about its Crazy Taxi update -- calling it an open-world, massively multiplayer game that’s “AAA” in scope.

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Sega Teases Shadow The Hedgehog Design In New Sketches

One of the best parts of Sonic x Shadow Generations, released last week, is the wealth of music, stories, and art in the game’s Collection. Acquired hidden emblems throughout each stage can be used as keys to unlock treasure chests throughout the White Space central hub zone and, with a quick shift of location, Shadow can check out his history through some wonderful artwork.

Earlier, Hoshino worked as an artist and character designer on several games such as Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Heroes. Shadow the Hedgehog as a character was first launched in 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2 as the ‘Ultimate Lifeform,’ before appearing in his own standalone game in 2005 where he wields a gun. Hoshino worked as an art director on both projects. With further details provided by Hoshino, the sketches reveal early concepts for not only Shadow’s design, but the proposed weaponry, and bad guy Black Doom.

"I wanted to create a deep, mature story suited to backstory. Shadow was created with the idea of him being a lead character and not just part of a cast of characters," Hoshino tells Eurogamer of working on the Shadow the Hedgehog game, where that promise was fulfilled.

The recent Silent Hill 2 remake will be enhanced for PS5 Pro. Released for PS5 and PC in October, Silent Hill 2 sold over a million copies in its first three days, instantly becoming a huge hit. Soon, PS5 Pro users will be able to enjoy the new version of this classic title.

While some gamers were skeptical of Bloober Team’s ability to remake the classic Silent Hill 2, the game was praised for its combat and atmosphere. With Silent Hill 2 receiving mostly positive reviews from critics, it obtained an average score of 87 on the review aggregate site OpenCritic.

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Bloober Team and Konami Improving The Game

Now, the Silent Hill 2 remake has been tagged as “PS5 Pro Enhanced” on the PS Store, indicating that Bloober Team and Konami have decided to upgrade the game for the launch of Sony’s new console model. Sadly, there are currently no details on how exactly the upgraded version will work.

The current version of Silent Hill 2 for PS5 has both Performance Mode and Quality Mode, enabling gamers to run the game at 1440p with 30fps, or 1080p with 6-FPS, respectively.

Given the scenario, it’s likely that the PS5 Pro Update will make way for greater resolutions and frame rates at the same time. It’s also likely that the Bloober Team will unveil a new Silent Hill 2 update soon to implement these changes.

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When Is The Game Coming To PS5 Pro

What’s surprising about the PS5 Pro Enhanced version of Silent Hill 2 is that it was not properly announced before. Recently, Sony released a list of games confirmed to get PS5 upgrades. While the list included popular titles such as Alan Wake 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Final Fantasy 7, Rebirth, Horizon Forbidden West, and others, it did not include the remake of Konami’s classic horror game.

The PS5 Pro will break cover on November 7, and it has been a very controversial topic since its original announcement. The console is being released at a hefty price of $700 in the US, and it may be even more expensive in other countries.

Despite the new model offering a 45% faster GPU and advanced ray tracing, the high price prompted a discussion about whether the console was worth it, as a normal PS5 would still run the same games and be considerably less expensive.

Steam Game Recording is officially out of beta and available to all users, giving PC, Mac, and Steam Deck players a built-in way to record and share audio and video from their gaming sessions.

The console joins many other ways PC gamers have been able to record their highlights, including as a feature of tools like the Xbox Game bar, Nvidia GeForce, and AMD’s Adrenalin.

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Valve Updates Steam Game Recording

The version of the Steam client is also the first to drop support for Windows 7 and 8 machines, as well as Macs running macOS 10.13 and 10.14 after the company announced the move at the beginning of this year.

After an automatic update, players can start recording manually using a hotkey or set it to trigger automatically, with options to restrict the length, quality, and storage space that Steam can use. Valve says it works with any game, including now-Steam games that enable Steam Overlay to run. The recording is off by default -- users will find its settings in a new Game Recording tab in Steam’s settings.

The company has updated Steam Game Recording with a handful of new features that weren’t there when the beta period began in June, including adding “advanced” export options and the ability to configure game-specific settings. Valve also added Session View, which includes a “Recordings & Screenshots manager with game-specific tags and data.”

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Valve To Stop Releasing New Steam Deck Models Yearly

The Steam Deck will not be getting yearly updates. At least that’s what one of its designers has suggested. But a Steam Deck 2 will likely happen at some point. During an interview with Reviews.org (via The Verge), Steam Deck designer Lawrence Yang said, "We’re not going to do a bump every year. There’s no reason to do that."

He explained that he thought it wasn’t fair to users to provide only incremental improvements each year. He said, "...we do want to wait for a generational leap in computing without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck." This aligns with previous statements from Valve. On many occasions in 2023, Valve employees stated that a more powerful Steam Deck would be years away-- late 2025 at the earliest.

Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais explained that part of the Steam Deck brand is that every model can play the same games; Valve doesn’t want to change that until Steam Deck performance gets a significant jump without compromising on the battery life. During the interview, Yang did note that the company is working on a Steam Deck successor.

Users don’t have to take great pains to preserve their Switch to make sure they can still play their favorite games on it years and years from now. Nintendo has revealed in its earnings report that the upcoming successor to the Switch will have backward compatibility and will be able to run games made for the current console.

Moreover, Switch Online will also be available on the Switch 2, which means their saves stored on the cloud will be carried over and they will be able to play NES, SNES, and Game Boy games on the new console.

The company explained that it’s making Switch Online available on the upcoming console because it thinks it’s important for Nintendo’s future to "carry over the good relationship" it has built with its more than 100 million annual playing users to the new device.

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How Will Current Games Work On Nintendo Switch 2

The main way to do this is to make use of the Nintendo Account, which ties a user’s history to one account and allows the company to "maintain a continuous relationship" with them across console generations.

Before the Nintendo Account was introduced, Nintendo had no easy way to carry a user’s history and purchase the next console. "As a result, our relationship with the consumers was interrupted when a new system was purchased," it said.

The company assured to give out more information about the Switch 2 "at a later date," though it didn’t say when exactly. In a recent event where we thought the new console could be launched, Nintendo introduced an alarm clock instead.

Considering its earnings results, it looks like people could choose to wait for the new console instead of buying the current Switch. The company had to downgrade its sales forecast for the fiscal year due to a big decline in console sales compared to the same periods last year.

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Nintendo Switch 2 Launch “Very Unlikely” Before 2025

Nintendo is now “very unlikely” to launch its highly-anticipated Switch 2 hardware this year, a games industry analyst has told Eurogamer. The recent financial results from Nintendo revealed a larger-than-expected drop in hardware and software sales for the current Switch, as the console ages and its release calendar quietens.

The results also passed by without even talking about Switch 2 being shown - and perhaps with Nintendo’s new hardware not due to arrive until sometime in 2025 - for good reason.

During an interaction with Eurogamer, industry analyst Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy Kantan Games, said any mention of the anticipated Switch 2 now would only further hamper Switch 1 sales during the console’s last holiday season.

Almost a year ago, Rockstar Games released the first trailer for GTA 6, which marks the franchise’s first sequel since Grand Theft Auto 5 in 2013. Fans had been hoping that today’s fiscal report for Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, would include a new GTA 6 trailer.

While that did not happen, Take-Two did confirm that the GTA sequel is still on track for a fall 2025 release. While speaking with CNBC, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick acknowledged that some of the company’s old games have slipped from their planned release dates.

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Rockstar Confident About GTA 6 Launch Timeline

However, Zelnick expressed his confidence that GTA 6 would make its release window. Zelnick also emphasized that the extended development of the game is more centered on enhancing the experience rather than removing out.

"In the case of an extraordinary title, for which there are extraordinary expectations, it's not really about bugs, it's about creating an experience that no one's seen before, and Rockstar Games seeks perfection in what they do," explained Zelnick. "And perfection is indeed hard to measure, it is more subjective than objective."

The company noted in this year’s fiscal statements that GTA 5 has sold 205 million copies to date across all platforms, while Red Dead Redemption 2 had 67 million copies to its name.

Take-Two also revealed that Borderlands 4 and Mafia: the Old Country is set to be released during the company’s fiscal 2026, which should fall between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026. The other upcoming games mentioned by name, CSR Racing 3 and Judas, have no specific release window yet.

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Former Developer Claims GTA 6 Will ‘Blow People Away’

Game designer Ben Hinchliffe has worked at Rockstar Games for over 10 years, and he contributed to games like Grand Theft Auto V, Read Dear Redemption II, and Grand Theft Auto VI before parting ways with the company in 2022. During a recent interview, Hinchliffe briefly discussed GTA VI, saying he believes the game will “blow people away” and be a smashing success when it comes to sales.

"It will sell an absolute ton, as it always does. People will be talking about it for ages afterward, just like they do with GTA 5," Hinchliffe told GTA VI O'clock. "I think they've raised the bar again. They always do, and they have done again with GTA 6."

When asked about what he’s most excited about GTA VI, Hinchliffe said he’s keen on seeing how the game has evolved since he left in 2022. He did not give out any information, as it is expected to be a secretive project. Hinchliffe now works at Sniper Elite VR studio Just Add Water.