Game intel
D’entre les Cendres
This caught my attention because it rewrites one of Frontiers of Pandora’s core pillars. Ubisoft is adding a full third-person view to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora on December 5, alongside New Game+ and a 40 fps mode. Then, on December 19, 2025, Massive Entertainment will drop a new story expansion, “D’entre les Cendres” (“From the Ashes”)-timed to the global release of James Cameron’s third Avatar film. It’s a bold late-cycle swing for a game that dazzled with vistas but split players on its first-person insistence and Ubisoft-template mission design.
Ubisoft’s December 5 update does three practical things. First, New Game+, which frankly should have been there ages ago, finally gives veterans a reason to rerun the campaign with their builds intact. Second, a 40 fps mode joins the growing console middle-ground trend for 120 Hz displays, trading some visual overhead for smoother motion and better input feel—think the sweet-spot modes we’ve seen in Ratchet & Clank and Spider-Man. Third, and most importantly, a third-person view. Frontiers locked you to first-person for immersion; it worked for some, but plenty of players bounced due to motion sickness and a sense that Pandora’s traversal begged for a wider field of view. A third-person option could transform on-foot exploration and combat readability overnight.
Two weeks later, Massive ships D’entre les Cendres, the game’s third major DLC after Sky Breaker and Secrets of the Mountains. It’s set after the base game and follows So’Lek, the Trr’ong warrior who’s popped up across the campaign, both DLCs, and even a comic run. Ambushed by the RDA and a new native faction called the People of the Ashes, So’Lek awakens in a ravaged Kinglor Forest, separated from his Sarentu family and driven by revenge. Massive calls it a “darker, more personal” arc with new combat mechanics and a fresh, unexplored zone in the Western Frontier.
As Creative Director Omar Bouali puts it: “We wanted to push the limits of what players can experience on Pandora. This expansion offers a darker, more personal story, increased immersion thanks to third-person gameplay, and new intense combat mechanics that deepen the emotional and tactical stakes. We wanted to give fans an exciting new perspective across the Western Frontier, with deeper storytelling and more visceral gameplay.”
The timing is no accident. Pairing a new expansion with the next Avatar film is smart marketing, sure, but it also reads like a chance to reposition Frontiers for players who skipped it at launch. At release, the Snowdrop engine made Pandora jaw-droppingly alive—bioluminescent nights, dense canopies, and airborne traversal were genuinely special—but the usual Ubisoft fatigue crept in. Massive, the studio behind The Division, knows third-person gunplay and authored camera work; bringing that sensibility to Avatar could sharpen combat feedback and make traversal feel more expressive, especially for parkour segments and melee.
The focus on So’Lek is intriguing too. The base game centered your own Na’vi; swapping to a fixed protagonist suggests a tighter, more authored narrative—something many felt the main story skirted around in favor of checklist objectives. A smaller, angrier story about survival and revenge in a scorched Western Frontier could be exactly the creative constraint this world needed.
Third-person is the headline for me. It should help with motion comfort, situational awareness, and actually seeing your Na’vi animations instead of just hands and HUD. If Massive ties new combat mechanics to stance, positioning, and readable enemy telegraphs, the shift could elevate moment-to-moment play far beyond a UI reticle swap. I’m also curious whether the third-person option carries cleanly across stealth, climbing, and any banshee or mount sequences—it’s one thing to add a camera, another to rebuild encounter spaces so it sings.
Meanwhile, 40 fps modes have quietly become the best way to play on modern TVs. If Snowdrop can maintain high-fidelity foliage, volumetrics, and dense wildlife at 40 without hitching, that’s a real upgrade over 30, especially in the forest canopies where motion blur previously did a lot of heavy lifting.
Here’s the rub: D’entre les Cendres isn’t part of the Season Pass or Deluxe bundles many already bought. It’ll be a separate purchase (or included if you’re on Ubisoft’s Premium subscription) and also sold in a new “D’entre les Cendres Edition” that bundles the base game, the expansion, and some cosmetic “Floating Mountains” banshee skins. If you supported the post-launch roadmap early, that stings. We’ve seen Ubisoft pull similar moves with late-cycle add-ons in Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry—good content, awkward delivery. If the expansion is substantial and the third-person overhaul meaningfully integrated, the value case will be easier to make; if it’s short or leans on cosmetics, expect pushback.
Frontiers of Pandora launched December 7, 2023 on PC, Amazon Luna, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Two years on, Massive is effectively relaunching the experience with quality-of-life features fans have asked for since day one and a story pivot that could fix the game’s biggest identity issue. I’m cautiously optimistic. Massive’s track record in third-person design is strong, and the studio’s recent work shows they can ship meaningful systems updates post-launch. Deliver a meaty, focused campaign with real mechanical bite, and D’entre les Cendres could be the moment Frontiers finally steps out of the franchise’s cinematic shadow.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora gets New Game+, a 40 fps mode, and—finally—a third-person camera on December 5. The new expansion, D’entre les Cendres, lands December 19, 2025 as a standalone purchase, telling a darker So’Lek story in the Western Frontier. Exciting pivot; keep an eye on the value, since it sits outside the Season Pass.
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