Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

I played Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora when it came out, got about twenty hours in and then moved on to something else. I was wondering last week if I given it short shrift, so reinstalled and played five or so more hours.

It’s certainly beautiful. It’s fun to fly around Pandora. The story is fine. Shooting mech-suited bad humans with a bow is satisfying. When I looked at HowLongToBeat, however, and realised I had at least a dozen more hours to complete the game at my typical slow pace, I realised that I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t want to search for the right ingredient in the forest to craft a better bow. I didn’t want to spend more time get better trousers, or a better harness for my flying buddy, or unlock another research station the same way I unlocked the last five.

It’s not a problem unique to Avatar, as I remember feeling that Horizon: Zero Dawn had outstayed its welcome by about 15-20 hours–although I found that game’s story considerably more interesting so I did push through to finish it. I will not finish Avatar, and so I happily assign it to the never-to-be-finished pile. ★★★☆☆