Ubisoft has disclosed that their upcoming game set in the Avatar universe (the blue people, not the airbenders) will only release on Xbox Series X|S and PS5. Since its official reveal at Ubisoft Forward 2021, fans have been excited to hear more about what this new game will look like and how it will compare to the rest of Ubisoft’s library. IGN sat down with Magnus Jansén, the games creative director, and Nikolay Stefanov, the games technical director of programming to find out exactly what makes Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora an experience that can only work on next-gen consoles.
First and foremost, the immersion that comes with a lovingly rendered, detailed world to explore is simply unmatched by anything besides the PS5 and Series X|S. Immersing the player in the world of Pandora will only be easier when developers are focused on building their game for the latest hardware. Magnus Jansén explains what new hardware will add to the game below.
We’re really going all-in on that vision of, ‘Remember the movie, remember you wanted to go to Pandora.’ Now you can go to Pandora and, to do that, we needed to have the best simulation of weather, rain, animals, and the best rendering, because the more technically excellent it is, the more capable it is of taking you from where you are and into the world of Pandora.
New hardware offers more than a visual overhaul, though, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will be taking full advantage of this. In the interview, Stefanov explained how flying across the landscape will look, saying that riding on the back of a Banshee will give players the opportunity to see the entire landscape rendered below them, no matter how high up or how fast they’re moving.
Speaking of the creatures of Pandora, next-gen hardware advances both creature and enemy AI to brand new heights. According to Jansén, creatures will react dynamically to their environments. For example, a giant creature walking through the woods will carefully navigate around trees until threatened. Once it is, the beast will dash through the foliage to escape, uprooting everything in its’ path to do so. Check out the full quote below.
The wildlife, the AI, the way that they track you, the way that they attack you, the advances in technology and the way that we are taking advantage of the power with our in-house Snowdrop engine is allowing us [to] do amazing things that would not be possible [otherwise].
Better hardware also means denser worlds, as the developers explain. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will be open world, but won’t be plagued by many of the age-old issues with the genre. Because the Series X|S and PS5 are so advanced, worlds developed for them no longer need to balance detail and density. Say goodbye to games with populated areas separated by stretches of relative emptiness, because Frontiers of Pandora will have a fully realized world filled to the brim with the little details that bring the most notable locations of other games to life. Excited for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora? You can watch the official reveal trailer below.