Summary
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an open-world game that delves even deeper into the world-building of the Avatar universe, with players having the freedom to explore and engage with the lore and new Na'vi clans.
- The player-character belongs to the Sarentu clan, an ancient Na'vi tribe known for their storytelling abilities, but most of the clan has apparently died out by the time of the game's story.
- The Sarentu clan's founding member, Entu, has connections to the first Avatar movie and played a significant role in saving his clan and the Tree of Souls with the help of a special Ikran known as a Toruk.
If there's one thing James Cameron and the rest of his team succeeded at with the first Avatar movie, it was world-building. An incredibly difficult thing to achieve, the first Avatar movie successfully managed to make Pandora feel like a real world, filled with its own native species and interweaving ecosystems. Of course, the Na'vi are front and center in all that, and while Avatar does borrow heavily from other stories in the process, the Na'vi do feel like a real people with their own internal politics and societal norms, a lot of which are explored more thoroughly in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
An open-world Ubisoft game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora leans all the way into world-building, arguably even more so than the movies. Given free rein over the world of Pandora themselves, it's up to players to determine just how much they engage with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's lore and world-building, though there's a staggering amount to dive into for long-time fans of the franchise. One of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's best additions to the Avatar canon is the appearance of a handful of new Na'vi clans, the most important of which is the player-character's own Sarentu clan.
Explaining Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's Sarentu Clan
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora introduces players to a total of four new Na'vi clans, each one now a fully-fledged member of the official Avatar canon. The main story of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora sees players attempt to rally together three local Na'vi clans, all of whom can be found on the Western Frontier of Pandora. These clans are the Aranahe, the Zeswa, and the Kame'tire. Each of these Na'vi clans has its own unique specialty, such as the Aranahe's silk-weaving and the Zeswa' hunting, and each one has its own home base.
But there's one Na'vi clan that's arguably even more important than the rest, and that's the Sarentu. At the beginning of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, players are introduced to a group of a Na'vi children, with their player-character being one of them. This group of Na'vi children were taken from a young age by the RDA and indoctrinated in an attempt to become human-Na'vi ambassadors. Before being kidnaped, these Na'vi children belonged to the Sarentu clan, one of the oldest Na'vi tribes renowned for their storytelling abilities.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's Sarentu Clan Has Some Big Connections to The Avatar Movies
The Sarentu clan was initially formed 3000 years before the events of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The clan's founding member, Entu, originally belonged to the Omatikaya clan, the same clan featured in the first Avatar movie. In an attempt to save his clan and the Tree of Souls from a volcanic explosion, Entu sought out the Great Leonopteryx, a special, gigantic variant of an Ikran also known as a Toruk. He managed to tame the beast, and became the first Toruk Makto, a title that Jake Sully would go on to earn thousands of years in the future.
Entu made his first appearance in the canonical Cirque du Soleil show, Toruk: The First Flight, where his first Toruk flight is retold.
By the time Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's protagonist manages to escape the underground RDA facility they've been trapped in their whole life, the Sarentu clan has apparently all but died out, leaving the player-character and their few friends as the last remaining Sarentu on Pandora. Though, it's always possible that the Sarentu are still out there.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 72 /100 Critics Rec: 52%
- Released
- December 7, 2023
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Language, Mild Blood, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Massive Entertainment
- Publisher(s)
- Ubisoft
- Engine
- Snowdrop
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Avatar
WHERE TO PLAY
Protect Pandora. Become Na'Vi. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™ is a first-person, action-adventure game set in the open world of the never-before-seen Western Frontier of Pandora. Abducted by the human militaristic corporation known as the RDA, you, a Na’vi, were trained and molded to serve their purpose. Fifteen years later, you are free, but find yourself a stranger in your birthplace. Reconnect with your lost heritage, discover what it truly means to be Na'vi, and join other clans to protect Pandora from the RDA.
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure
