General Gaming Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (PC/PS5/Xbox Series) - update: "PC optimised settings and graphics comparison vs PS5" (Digital Foundry)

[Keyser_Soze]

46 minutes ago, Brian said:

The interiors are all drabs of grays with no color. It is extremely one tone. Add that rooms, hallways, and spaces look the same, it is super boring. Plus there lighting doesn’t look great.

 

I think that's the idea. The presence of humans and their bases are sapping life out of the planet. So the colors are drab to reflect that. Go out into the world and when you get close to the factories and stuff the colors go down and the plants are all scorched and stuff.

 

The whole idea of getting outside being the whoa moment is intentional. It's basically like the half life train where you're like ok, and then you get past some shit and you're like whoa!

[stepee]

I don’t think it’s supposed to look graphically bad in the way he described it however 

[Keyser_Soze]

5 minutes ago, stepee said:

I don’t think it’s supposed to look graphically bad in the way he described it however 

 

It is supposed to look that way, sorry!

[Brian]

I guess I am not describing it properly but it looks off to me. 

[stepee]

I do think even on pc that the character models, especially humans, are the weakest part. But I don’t think the Navi really completely hold up against the environments either. I just think they are more stylized so it’s less noticeable. They aren’t bad but they aren’t the same caliber of everything else imo. I think it’s likely a budget thing and the engine doesn’t have its own version of something like meta human to work around that. Maybe UBI could start licensing it since it can be licensed piece meal outside of UE5. 

 

I wonder how Star Wars will hold up from the same developer using the same engine. I’m guessing it has a larger budget and will hold up better.

 

Im just so happy to finally have good lighting in an UBI game. It felt like the lighting got downgraded in all their games after Unity and it never bounced back from that. They always have such great environmental design but scenes would often look flat especially in kind of mid tones like if it’s a cloudy morning. They’d look great sometimes when the lighting hit just right but it always seemed like at least 2/3rds of the tod’s they would cycle between would fall flat.

[stepee]

Ok yeah this shit is sick. I got my flying mount now and she is a good girl. Also you can pet them and it’s even interactive and has vibration which is KEY. 

 

The platforming segment to get to that point was also fantastic in every way, the gameplay itself, the music, the scenery, just really gorgeous stuff. I’m not sure if it’s the best looking game vs path traded CP77/AW2 but it’s definitely the most beautiful.

 

Diving off of floating platforms and calling your ikran is awesome and likely to never get old.

 

Curious how Burning Shores will look on pc compared to this, I feel like they likely showed up that team almost out of nowhere a month before launch, but maybe they added a lot! I only compared them because of the flying stuff and both are games that impress most with geometry.

 

One negative is I think it would be better without the investigation mechanic stuff. In fact, I think games in general can kinda cool it off that unless it’s really a key element of the game. 

 

Back to positives I’m very impressed with how this launched on pc (minus AMD dlss3 hush money) with really zero stuttering despite loading in so many high quality assets so quickly and I haven’t had a single crash.

[stepee]

Fuck there is a huge ass difficulty spike after that. I haven’t been doing a lot of side missions so I was one level under recommended, guess you can’t really do that here. I’m playing on easy though, can’t even imagine how hard that would be on normal. I guess I’ll do some leveling up because I’m still a level below.

 

That took me like 90 minutes, 45 minutes straight on my successful attempt taking down that base because I had to be so slow and methodical to not insta die. I hope i’m able to easily get the difficulty back to something more palatable and that the rest of the game isn’t that hard. Stealth would have been easier I guess but all my leveling has gone to combat so my Navi isn’t very good at that.

[Keyser_Soze]

You should play it co-op and touch tips with a friend.

[Brian]

I am playing on normal and it’s been challenging so far. I think part of the reason is stealth isn’t a thing. No matter how I sneak around, I feel the enemies spot me quickly and quite far away. Once one spots you, you aggro everyone and it doesn’t take much to kill you. Also there is no stealth kill mechanic. 
 

I am also getting lost quite a bit. The map isn’t that helpful and the verticality makes it more difficult. 
 

I do wonder if Avatar fans like this story because it’s doing nothing for me. Doesn’t help that you can’t pause cutscenes so there are times I walk away, come back, and have no clue what to do.

[stepee]

13 hours ago, Brian said:

I am playing on normal and it’s been challenging so far. I think part of the reason is stealth isn’t a thing. No matter how I sneak around, I feel the enemies spot me quickly and quite far away. Once one spots you, you aggro everyone and it doesn’t take much to kill you. Also there is no stealth kill mechanic. 
 

I am also getting lost quite a bit. The map isn’t that helpful and the verticality makes it more difficult. 
 

I do wonder if Avatar fans like this story because it’s doing nothing for me. Doesn’t help that you can’t pause cutscenes so there are times I walk away, come back, and have no clue what to do.

 

I wouldn’t say the story is “good” but I would consider it average, not terrible. It’s fine. Not as good as FC6 but better than FC5. 
 

That is strange I’ll double check tomorrow but I’m pretty sure on pc you can pause cutscenes. 

 

Regarding stealth, that is kinda why I invested in combat. Seems like the mission I did you can skip the combat which seems possible using stealth but you can’t like take out the enemy silently using stealth. A lot of times it seems like the idea is to sneak in and get in as many quick shots as you can and then engage in combat. Or run away and then do the same thing again. But yeah stealth doesn’t seem like a viable fun way to play the game.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - the big developer tech interview

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

---

Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia interviews Massive's Nikolay Stefanov and Oleksandr Koshlo about Avatar: Frontiers of …

 

Quote

 

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora almost came out of nowhere to become one of the best-looking games of the year, with the movie series' iconic setting meshing beautifully with almost Crysis-style gameplay and a newly upgraded Snowdrop engine - which was itself first announced at E3 ten years ago with The Division. Best of all, Avatar is a technical triumph not only on PC, where it pushes the boundaries of graphics technology, but also on consoles - where it holds up surprisingly well on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and even Series S.

 

The studio behind the title is Ubisoft Massive, and recently Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia had a chance to interview two key figures in its technical development: Nikolay Stefanov, the game's technical director, and Oleksandr Koshlo, the render architect of the Snowdrop engine.

 

The interview that follows is a fascinating look behind the scenes at how Massive were able to develop the Snowdrop engine, realise the world of Pandora in video game form and deliver a game of a type and quality that isn't as common as it once was.

 

 

[Spork3245]

This was on sale at QVC.com for $30

But only the console versions 

[stepee]

The second area is almost even more crazy. The draw distance and LOD on these settings  is freakin nuts. It also is like 20% more demanding, definitely wouldn’t have held up with fsr3.

[stepee]

Oh and the sound design is stunning! Playing this with the ps pulse explore buds is a phenomenal experience. The 3D ray traced sound is incredible especially in rainy stormy weather but even just how the positional audio is always correct moving around camps when people are talking.

[stepee]

man I am scolded a lot in this game like I’m trying to be a good Navi okay 

[stepee]

It’s lame that you don’t get as many rewards from bases if you don’t do stealth considering how much the game does not lend itself well to extended stealth

[AbsolutSurgen]

 

 

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - PC optimised settings and graphics comparison vs PS5

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

---

Here are Alex Battaglia's optimised settings for the PC port of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Plus: how does the PC ver…

 

Quote

 

Before I get into the settings themselves, let's talk about the user experience on PC - as it's a highlight of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The first thing you'll notice is that the game doesn't have a noticeable shader pre-compilation step when you play it for the first time, but it does occur according to my conversation with developers. When playing the game, it's easy to notice that there are no frame-time issues with the game - and indeed the frame-time graph is smooth. With good settings for your GPU, you'll have a fluid experience in Avatar - something a lot of modern games get wrong.

 

The graphics menu also offers a wide range of tweakables to make the experience your own with a classic Ubisoft-style menu - similar to those in Far Cry and Assassin's Creed titles. The descriptions here explain what each setting does, how it affects VRAM usage, how many setting there are based on the visible pips and how each visual change will look with a preview image.

 

To back it all up, the game also provides an in-game benchmark which reminds me of the one we saw in Returnal on PC, but perhaps even more in-depth. I love this benchmark, and though it doesn't use a pure gamplay camera, it is representative of the higher load the game can have at its most intense and taxing moments. You can even run the benchmark from the command line for automated testing - nice. Based on the user experience then, this is the best PC port I've had the pleasure to review in 2023.

 

 

[stepee]

I’m still enjoying it, about 2/3 through, but to me it’s definitely a good game that could be great if only they reigned in some of their design decisions.

 

Things like putting an emphasis on stealth…when the alert sensitivity and stealth combat options don’t lend itself well to that. And then punishing you for going in guns blazing when that should actually give you more awards. 

 

Or the high difficulty level even on easy unless you over level which essentially forces you to “Ubi Game” it with a bunch of specific side stuff which exposes its weakest elements, and if they didn’t have leveling work that way it would be a more free flowing experience.

 

And how it locks leveling so tight around gear improvements which requires more “Ubi Game” stuff since quests themselves don’t give that much experience so you have to go out and hunt for specific things like a certain type of fruit from a certain area, which by being so specific means you can’t really just explore and use what you get, again forcing you to Ubi. Or to do all the Ubi base missions and get better gear that way.

 

I do also think that while the story isn’t terrible and comes across as serviceable, it might have actually been better if it was terrible, because it’s generally mostly boring, which may be worse. This becomes more noticeable due to them extending the amount you need to do with all the Ubi stuff.

 

I like Ubi games enough that it’s still a lot of fun and it is an absolute technical marvel in every way but it could have been something more which is a shame.

 

It’s definitely at its best in the actual missions, randomly exploring for fun, and anything involving the platforming.

 

Also those mechs that can launch non stop barrages of homing missile attacks at you can  eat a dick so big it hasn’t even been invented yet.

 

[best3444]

Definitely a pass. Thanks for the detailed mini review. 

[stepee]

I’m going to actually just ask for one thing of the story as I enter the final chapters - you better not hurt my fucking Ikran

[stepee]

jesus christ this story is depressing lol

[stepee]

I had a really bad bug where enemy’s were shooting through the fucking walls and kept killing me over and over. It took me too long before I realized it wasn’t by design and restarted and then it was fine. Overall the game has been in quite a great state performance/bug wise so I’ll let this one slide but fyi if this happens to anyone playing 

[stepee]

I’m definitely going to be ready for a more “fun” story in Like a Dragon Gaiden next after this but I will give them credit actually for how devastatingly bleak it gets here. It’s impossible to ignore the obvious parables that Avatar is doing in general and they really lay it on here.

[stepee]

On 12/20/2023 at 10:32 AM, stepee said:

I’m still enjoying it, about 2/3 through, but to me it’s definitely a good game that could be great if only they reigned in some of their design decisions.

 

Things like putting an emphasis on stealth…when the alert sensitivity and stealth combat options don’t lend itself well to that. And then punishing you for going in guns blazing when that should actually give you more awards. 

 

Or the high difficulty level even on easy unless you over level which essentially forces you to “Ubi Game” it with a bunch of specific side stuff which exposes its weakest elements, and if they didn’t have leveling work that way it would be a more free flowing experience.

 

And how it locks leveling so tight around gear improvements which requires more “Ubi Game” stuff since quests themselves don’t give that much experience so you have to go out and hunt for specific things like a certain type of fruit from a certain area, which by being so specific means you can’t really just explore and use what you get, again forcing you to Ubi. Or to do all the Ubi base missions and get better gear that way.

 

I do also think that while the story isn’t terrible and comes across as serviceable, it might have actually been better if it was terrible, because it’s generally mostly boring, which may be worse. This becomes more noticeable due to them extending the amount you need to do with all the Ubi stuff.

 

I like Ubi games enough that it’s still a lot of fun and it is an absolute technical marvel in every way but it could have been something more which is a shame.

 

It’s definitely at its best in the actual missions, randomly exploring for fun, and anything involving the platforming.

 

Also those mechs that can launch non stop barrages of homing missile attacks at you can  eat a dick so big it hasn’t even been invented yet.

 

 

Credits roll and this is still mostly my thoughts on it. I’d give it a 7.5/10. Good, not great. I’m a little disappointed overall as there is so much potential here with some super high highs that is bogged down with some unfortunate lows.

 

Mostly the forced ubi’ing. I liked pretty much all of the main missions, if difficulty wasn’t tied so hard to leveling up and leveling up wasn’t tied so hard to tedious hunting and other ubiworld shinanigans, even that simple of a change, and it would have been a lot more enjoyable for me. 

Part of my issue with the kind of trying to force you to explore design is just that it’s not really exploring when you have to go after specific things in order to keep the challenge at a reasonable level. I definitely did a decent amount of stuff just to grind my level up I’d rather not have and I still only landed on the recommended level for the last mission, which still provided a bit of a challenge even on easy.  

 

Then there is the false sense of being an open design. Best exemplified by this one case that had these super powerful turrets. So I methodically took them all down starting from one far side. Then as I approach the base my character goes “I can’t get past these turrets” even though, I literally just did just that. Then it automatically yanks my character far away and resets them. I did this again after resetting thinking it was a bug and same thing. I later find out it’s an important story mission tied to it and that’s why they do it. But that is terrible design and not how you wall off content you don’t want the player to get to yet. That is the worst example but there are definitely other moments where the game annoyingly says “tackle these situations however you want!” followed by “but not like that”.

 

I loved taking down bases, the combat feels great, the platforming feels great, combining the two feels great. Most times when there is combat or I was running and hopping around the jungle I was having a good time. Any time it slowed down and I was looking for some specific item or the fucking pointless investigations I was simply bored and waiting for the next fun part.

 

The game didn’t need to force leveling up the way it does and at least on easy should have just let you play the main story and whatever side content you wanted to without having to do any specific hunting etc. And to add insult to injury it also kind of had it both ways by scaling up the difficulty of side content to your level even though the level scaling means the action ain’t purely skill based.

 

Heres hoping Massive carries over the highs on display here to Star Wars, because there are a lot of really cool moments and of course the technology is amazing. But please sort the fucking leveling. And don’t do stealth if you aren’t going to build fun stealth mechanics and properly tuned enemy alertness.

 

I will also say the story was better towards the end and I at least respected where they went with it more. Also it might have my favorite hacking mini game so far.

[stepee]

Also you can’t see how many hours you played on Ubi which is weird but it took me a week and I’ve been playing quite a bit each day so I’d say it took me about 35 hours or so. 

 

Which is longer than I thought since I had really wanted to mainline this one - especially because I made the mistake of starting LAD Gaiden which had a fantastic opening and I’ve been really looking forward to going back to that. That probably made the issues I had with it stand out more for me than they might for others.

[best3444]

Thanks for the honest review. I will never play this unless it hits gamepsss down the road. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Updated the reviews post:

 

 

[best3444]

@stepee @Brian Can this be played on the deck?

 

Why SHOULDN'T I buy this?

[AbsolutSurgen]

2 minutes ago, best3444 said:

@stepee @Brian Can this be played on the deck?

 

Why SHOULDN'T I buy this?

It's not on Steam -- so you're going to be playing with a 3rd party launcher.

My quick search of Reddit suggests that even with very low settings, it was frequently dipping to 20 fps on SteamDeck.

[best3444]

1 minute ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

It's not on Steam -- so you're going to be playing with a 3rd party launcher.

My quick search of Reddit suggests that even with very low settings, it was frequently dipping to 20 fps on SteamDeck.

 

Oh Jesus thank you. I will definitely pass. I still might buy it on PS5...maybe. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Just now, best3444 said:

 

Oh Jesus thank you. I will definitely pass. I still might buy it on PS5...maybe. 

Before I buy anything not deck verified, that I plan to play on Deck, I go into the SteamDeck subreddit and do a quick search on the game name.  It gives one a sense of whether it is worth trying.

[best3444]

13 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Before I buy anything not deck verified, that I plan to play on Deck, I go into the SteamDeck subreddit and do a quick search on the game name.  It gives one a sense of whether it is worth trying.

 

Ok thanks. I'm interested in a game like Dragons Dogma 2 where it's a fully next gen game. How could that possibly run on the deck if at all?

[AbsolutSurgen]

6 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

Ok thanks. I'm interested in a game like Dragons Dogma 2 where it's a fully next gen game. How could that possibly run on the deck if at all?

I would wait to see if it gets SD verified closer to launch.

The minimum PC specs make me dubious.

[Brian]

53 minutes ago, best3444 said:

@stepee @Brian Can this be played on the deck?

 

Why SHOULDN'T I buy this?

because it’s a mediocre game

[best3444]

1 minute ago, Brian said:

because it’s a mediocre game

 

Ok. I think stepee liked it more than you but I'll probably pass. Thanks