Avatar: From the Ashes Review – Grimdark Pandora Feels Like Home

Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment decided to give us an end-of-year present with the Avatar Frontiers of Pandora DLC called Avatar: From the Ashes. In tandem with the release of the new Avatar movie, Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Avatar: From the Ashes is not just a small DLC but a separate storyline you can play even without beating or playing the main game. We do recommend checking out the excellent main game, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, as it brings an amazing Na’vi experience and vibrant world to explore.

TL;DR

Avatar: From the Ashes is a stand-alone story where you play as So’Lek to clear Pandora of the new RDA wave and their new allies, the Ash Clan. If you liked Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, you will love the new content. Better cutscenes, same gameplay loop, and third-person camera. The downside, smaller palette of colours in the world and no co-op for this DLC.

Avatar: From the Ashes – Don’t Change a Winning Formula

Avatar Frontiers of Pandora hit all the right spots of open-world exploration. A beautiful world, interesting gathering mechanics, a worthwhile upgrade path for gear and collecting, and a true Na’vi experience where it felt you were actually learning their ways as The Sarentu. Add in a movement set that felt impactful, fast, and engaging, and dashing through the gigantic forests and plains of Pandora was just simply fun.

Avatar: From the Ashes maintains all this but streamlines the experience more along the lines of an action-packed story. More cinematics, better cinematics, intenser scenes where the cruel nature of the RDA and the Ash Clan is evident.

The struggle of So’lek as he witnesses the atrocities the Ash Clan brings to his people and the creatures of the Kinglor Forest. These cutscenes draw you into the story of ongoing events and the history of So’lek, detailing how he came to be. This DLC feels like a movie, hook, line, and sinker, for the Avatar: Fire and Ash movie.

Feels Like Coming Home Again

Avatar: From the Ashes starts with a linear sequence that sets up the full weight of what the DLC has to offer. Don’t worry, it also starts with a recap of Avatar Frontiers of Pandora and all the minor DLC Avatar Frontiers of Pandora had, so you are up to speed to dive in headfirst.

After that, you are thrown into an air dogfight with So’lek at his prime with his full kit of abilities and weapons. A good way to tutorial us back into the mechanics and weapons Avatar: From the Ashes has to offer. At the end of this linear sequence, So’lek gets stuck in an RDA facility that gets blown up. Being wounded and having lost all his gear, you limp back to your main base and take some time to reflect.

And after that world opens up just like Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, the DLC starts with one clue or hook for you to explore, and as you progress, you discover more main story hooks to explore and world objectives to restore and heal Pandora. While the world objectives focus on clearing camps in a certain area until you unlock the big base to take down. The story missions focus on finding your fellow Sarentu and fighting back against the Ash Clan and their RDA backing.

Monotone Colour Palette and Typical Open-World Issues

The RDA and Ash Clan in Avatar: From the Ashes focus mainly on hurting the Hometree Na’vi where it hurts. The forest and the creatures within it kill and burn everything they hold dear to further their own gain. And when we say burning, we really mean burning the world.

This turns the Kinglor Forest and Pandora into a burning forest covered in grey ash. While the world in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora is stunning with all its colour and diverse fauna and flora, the forest is now a bland, grey, and black smouldering landscape that wears out pretty quickly.

The same goes for the open-world issues that regularly pop up when playing the Xbox version. The fire is resource-intensive when it comes to processing and can give some uncomfortable dips, and NPCs can get really dumb with their pathing, stuck in buildings or boulders, and after a finisher, we even clipped through some stairs, having to reload a checkpoint and start a raid all over again.

More Than Just a DLC

Avatar: From the Ashes brings more than a better cinematic experience and a darker story. Gameplay-wise, it brings in the third-person perspective mode, while it doesn’t sound like much, such a feature requires a huge rework of the camera, tweaking animations of the playable character, etc. We loved playing in first-person mode as you really felt how good the movement was in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora. Jumping, dashing, and double jumping through the forest just felt good.

New Moves, New Features

While in third-person mode, you lose that sense of speed and agility, but third-person mode makes up for it by really making you feel like a three-metre-tall Na’vi. Crawling through human-made structures makes you feel like a legit giant, and the mechs suddenly feel smaller.

Avatar: From the Ashes allegedly also brings updated banshee riding, but aside from doing an air dash to break certain roots, we haven’t really noticed any difference. We were mostly glad we got our banshee right from the start instead of having to do the whole quest chain again to obtain it.

New enemy types to discover and take out change the combat loop a bit, but not dramatically. The biggest new enemy is other Na’vi from the Ash Clan; their fights are mini-boss battles. They are fast,  use Na’vi and human weaponry, and can withstand serious punishment.

And last but not least, we finally have finishers. Sneaking never felt so good when you sneak up to an AMP mech and surgically tear it apart in a brutal finisher. And not only do these work on ground units, in air battles, when you damage a scorpion enough, but several finishers are just epic to watch over and over again. And these finishers aren’t just limited to sneaky play. You can go loud and damage an enemy enough to finish them off.

Avatar: From the Ashes DLC Verdict

If you like Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, you will like this DLC. Unless you wanted to play it in co-op. Avatar: From the Ashes offers more of what we loved and adds a more cinematic experience that really hits the nail on the head with its cutscenes and acting. It’s a nice treat that neatly comes together with the new movie, ensuring 2025 ends in splendor and Na’vi joy for the fans of the Avatar Universe.

Thanks to CD Media for giving us a key to dive back into the amazing world of Pandora.