Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is set to receive a massive new expansion to tie-in with the upcoming movie Avatar: Fire and Ash. Set months after the events of the movie, From the Ashes puts players in the role of So’lek, a Na’vi warrior from the base game, instead of their personal Sarentu character.

Alongside this shift in character, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is giving players a shift in perspective: third-person gameplay. Speaking to FRVR ahead of the expansion’s launch, narrative director Aoife O’Friel and game design lead Amandine Lauer explained that the expansion’s third-person design offered a unique challenge, but also allowed the team to create something fans really wanted.

Lauer explained that the opportunity to do third-person came “as a package”. While the team knew that fans really wanted to explore Pandora in third-person, the opportunity to create a new expansion that was designed around the third-person experience meant that they could create new content while having the chance to create the feature fans wanted.

“When you play in third-person, you have a difference perspective,” Lauer continued. “In combat, for example, it changes a lot, like how you tackle positioning, for example, how you approach the environment, how you handle traversal. It’s a different feeling for all of this.”

For From the Ashes, the team dived deep into making the game as satisfying in third-person as the game is in first-person, but it’s different. The main game of Frontiers of Pandora has players connecting with the world in first-person to be as immersive as possible in the world of Avatar as a new Na’vi, but So’lek’s story is one of experience and revenge, and that completely altered narrative lends itself better to third-person.

This meant that the team went harder on what third-person could do, introducing brutal new finisher moves for combat that fit the perspective better than first-person. There’s also less of a focus on crafting and progression, something that the main game did by allowing you to interact with the flora and fauna of Pandora with specific first-person gameplay sequences.

“I think first-person worked so well for the Sarentu character because you’re tied to the world that way,” O’Friel explained. “It’s very immersive. You are exploring alongside the character you’ve created. So you’re both new to Pandora. And then with So’lek, you do get that removal from him because you’re watching him and you’re watching, you know, the visceral, uh, takedowns and the finishers that he does and you see how powerful he is.

“There is that little kind of step back. But also third person allowed us a lot of freedom narratively with From the Ashes. because it meant we could do third person cinematics as well, which a very different vibe and that is to be very fast paced, do quick cuts, very action-impact. So that really suited So’lek’s story for From the Ashes.”

While third-person is largely designed for the new expansion, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is bringing third-person gameplay to the main game as well. “We knew we wanted to do third person. We understood the players wanted this. We also wanted it like it was a good opportunity. that open the door for things we could inject,” Lauer added.

With this in mind, the majority of the game will be playable in third-person with a new set of animations that allow you to experience Pandora as players deem fit. However, not everything is possible in the perspective with the game’s foraging mechanics and original cutscenes still playing out in the first-person perspective.

Nevertheless, the team at Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment has worked hard on bringing the long-requested feature to the game. While it may change the intended relationship with the dense world of Pandora, players can now experience the world how they wish.