With James Cameron’s Avatar franchise hitting its third instalment at the tail-end of 2025, it seemed like a no-brainer for Ubisoft: Massive to release the third and likely final piece of DLC for their action game set in the same universe. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – From the Ashes takes place more or less alongside the events of Fire and Ash, but tells its own more compact story, kept separate from the main storyline of the game. As Jake Sully and Neytiri fight against Miles Quaritch and Varang, From the Ashes places you amidst a different conflict.
In it you play as So’lek, a battle-hardened Na’Vi warrior you’ll remember from the main plot of Frontiers. The seven-odd hour campaign of From the Ashes sees you take on his role, battling against a host of new enemies including several members of the vicious pyromaniacal Ash Clan and one Major Tyler Bukowski, the essential human douchebaguette bad guy who seems written to make us hate him. To be fair, I don’t mind this; one of the things I really liked about the first film was that bad guys were just bad and it was easy to root against them.
This is a theme continued here, as the protagonist from the main game acts an NPC alongside So’lek (and you can even import your own Na’Vi for this, which I liked), and much of the early part of the DLC is spent seeing these two characters get roughed up and thrown about by the villains you’ll spend the rest of the game fighting against.
The gameplay itself is much the same as before, though. The new third-person mode introduced in the previous update just suits the game much better than the first person camera, and makes it feel more tactile to navigate the dense, beautiful forests of Pandora or the dimly lit military bases of the RDA invaders.
What follows So’lek’s escape is a condensed version of Frontiers of Pandora complete with most of the same gameplay mechanics as before. You’ll fly on the back of a big lizard-bird, you’ll shoot men in mech suits, and fight a few bosses that provide a little more challenge but don’t ultimately demand a lot from you.
From the Ashes does have a pretty compelling plot, though, and So’lek is a decent main character. He’s pretty straightforward in his desire to save his family and vanquish his enemies, both human and Na’Vi, and that’s all you really need. Most of the rest of this DLC’s appeal comes from the visuals which, in keeping with the franchise as a whole, are spectacular.
Perhaps it’s the narrower scope or the smaller gameworld at work, but those visuals don’t push the PS5 as much as they did before. Granted Frontiers of Pandora has had multiple updates and patches since the initial release, but I definitely found the experience to be much smoother. There are a few notable tweaks to the interface, too, such as making collectible gear and supply items more visible amongst the often busy scenery.
Being able to jump straight into Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – From the Ashes from the menu makes it easy to access and get stuck into the new story, so newcomers can opt to play either campaign from the get-go and you’ll lose nothing either way except the appearance of the Sarentu NPC in So’lek’s story.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – From the Ashes is a solid, good-looking, well-paced standalone story that may not reinvent the wheel in terms of the gameplay or aesthetic, but still feels like a story worth playing through for fans of the main game. With around seven hours of content it also feels worth it; you won’t just blast through it in a few hours and you’ll have time to become attached to the supporting characters and get invested in So’lek’s desperate quest. With Avatar: Fire and Ash dominating the box office right now and attracting new fans as well as old, this is a perfect time to head back to Pandora and continue the fight.
