Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a 2023 open world action-adventure game based on the Avatar film series, developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. In the year 2146, eight years before Jake Sully arrives on Pandora, the RDA sets up The Ambassador Program (TAP) led by Dr. Alma Cortez and RDA Director John Mercer, with the goal of training five young Na'vi children: the player (referred as "the Sarentu"), Ri'nela, Aha'ri, Teylan, and Nor, to be Na'vi-human ambassadors. However, the Na'vi children remember they were kidnapped from their clans and chafe under Mercer's strict curriculum, culminating in them attempting to escape.
This work provides examples of:
- Alien Invasion: The RDA's invasion of Pandora and the Western Frontier.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Colonel Harding captures Pandora fauna to sell them on the black market.
- Base on Wheels: Par for the course for the RDA. Whilst the game has a lot of large static ground vehicles, nothing tops Drilling Platform Alpha which is a mobile oil rig on tracks.
- Beef Gate: It's not as obvious as a game like Borderlands, but enemies and missions do have levels, and attempting to tackle missions which are at too high a level compared to your current level can result in enemies that kill you quickly and take way too many shots to kill.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: By the events of Frontiers of Pandora, the RDA has already developed the updated Kestrel and Seawasp gunships, yet the RDA forces in the game use the older Samson and Scorpion gunships.
- Big Bad: John Mercer, the chief of RDA operation in the Western Frontier.
- Bond Creatures: The player gets the opportunity to bond with one of the Ikrans, the flying creatures, and the Pa'li, the pandoran horses.
- Child of Two Worlds: The Na'vi of The Ambassador Program were raised by humans and were taught human culture but remain linked to their Sarentu heritage. It's even the name of a cosmetic skin exclusive to the PlayStation 5 version.
- Demoted to Extra: Characters from the films like Jake Sully or Frances Ardmore are mentioned but the action takes place away from locations seen in them. Ardmore's voice is heard in the endgame, ordering Harding and her forces to retreat while leaving Mercer to his fate.
- The Dragon: Colonel Angela Harding, leader of the SecOps in the Western Frontier.
- Ecocidal Antagonist: Mercer's branch of the RDA doesn't care for the destruction it causes to Pandora's environment and the creatures inhabiting it.
- Going Native: Sort of. The Sarentu Na'vi of The Ambassador Program, protagonist included, were kidnapped by humans when they were small children and raised in human culture while their Na'vi heritage was actively suppressed. After escaping the TAP the Sarentu must re-learn the ways of the Na'vi.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Billy Nash stays behind in the exploding RDA facility/prison to ensure its destruction and give the player character a chance to escape.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Teylan always believes Mercer will show mercy even though it's obvious he has none towards any Na'vi. It's because of this naive thinking that the initial Resistance HQ gets destroyed by the RDA. After this Teylan wises up and takes a Tropes Are Tools approach in-universe: he feigns still siding with Mercer but plots to covertly give the player character intel at just the right moment (in the middle of what looks like him tricking you into a trap). This allows the player character to liberate the Western Frontier, and Teylan even fools Mercer at the end so that he can be trapped in his own base as it explodes.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Mokasa says this as his way of justifying betraying the Sarentu Clan to the RDA, claiming it was either their children or his clan's. It falls flat because it caused the Kame'tire to cut themselves off from the other clans and sent their tsahìk into borderline suicidal depression.
- It's Personal: The fight to liberate the Western Frontier is personal for the player character as the leader of the RDA in the region, Mercer, killed their sister.
- Jerkass: Mercer cannot go a second without being a dick to everyone he talks to. He barely conceals his Fantastic Racism for the Na'vi as well.
- La Résistance: The Resistance is composed of Na'vi and humans fighting the RDA.
- Tyke Bomb: The purpose of The Ambassador Program (TAP) is to raise Na'vi children to serve the interests of the RDA.
- Villainous Breakdown: By the last act, Mercer is willing to detonate a giant bomb beneath Pandora's surface just to get access to an oil reserve as a result of the protagonist dismantling his operations.
- Would Hurt a Child: Mercer has no qualms about killing children like Aha'ri.
