The road to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has been a bumpy one, but at long last, it looks like things are finally starting to come together. Recently at the Ubisoft Forward showcase, Massive Entertainment fully unveiled its upcoming open world action-adventure title, showing off its first person combat, its gorgeous open world, and more. In the aftermath of that reveal, speaking with the PlayStation Blog, creative director Magnus Jansén spoke about the game some more, and also offered an explanation on why Frontiers of Pandora is going to be a first person title.
According to Jansén, wanting to thoroughly immerse players in the game’s world was the primary reason for deciding to make it a first person experience, with the team at Massive Entertainment aiming to let players be completely and thoroughly to the world of Pandora in hopes of replicating the feel of the Avatar movies.
“When I watched the first Avatar all those years ago, and then again with Avatar: The Way of Water, there’s this feeling when you first see Pandora, that it’s almost real, because the groundwork that went into creating it and the quality of execution is so impressive that it feels like a real place, and you instantly have this feeling that you want to go there,” Jansén said. “And I remember, walking out of the movie theater and almost feeling a little sad that I couldn’t.”
“My ultimate core goal is to make it possible for me, and you, to go to Pandora, and a first-person perspective is the best way to be immersed in a new place,” he continued. “There’s so much in the details and in the technology of Pandora, all these otherworldly, reactive things, and you want to touch them and see how they react. First-person was the most tactile, and most importantly, the most immersive.”
Of course, Frontiers of Pandora isn’t going to be exclusively first person. Though that will be the game’s perspective for the majority of the experience, when players are using their mounts – both land-based and aerial – it will switch to a third person perspective.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora launches on December 7 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.