Ubisoft Massive, the developer of the upcoming Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, explained how the game will put the PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles to the test in an interview detailing the cutting-edge technology introduced in the game. Speaking to IGN, technical programming director Nikolay Stefanov explained why the PS4 and Xbox One consoles couldn't facilitate the developer's technical ambition for Avatar. "to get much better detail of objects close to you, but also when you're flying high in the air, to have a nice view and far rendering, where we can even use ray tracing to cast shadows very far, you know, three or four kilometers from you. When it comes to card design, Avatar Creative Director Magnus Jansén drew the line between last generation and new, explaining: Spreading everything is small, subtle things that people don't think about. the places of the world are for each other. "If you look, with the old hard drives they had to be very spaced apart, because you had to stream the old and the new, so that created a stereotyped world. So there's a lot of stuff like that."
pandora's sandbox
Reading the interview, you might get the impression that Ubisoft Massive takes current-gen technology very seriously. The PS5 and Xbox Series X SSDs are significantly faster at loading scenes than the old last-gen hard drives, which would be an advantage for the open-world sandbox featured in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. If you're familiar with the Avatar franchise, you'll recognize that the world of Pandora has no shortage of dense jungles, forests, and more. Large amounts of foliage have always been relatively difficult to render, which comes down to the sheer number of objects that need to be rendered in the scene. This can often negatively affect frame rates and overall graphics quality, and we imagine the PS5 and Xbox Series X will likely continue to see frame drops here and there. We are certainly curious to see the results of Ubisoft Massive's efforts with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. As Ubisoft's first current-gen exclusive title, it has the opportunity to set the bar high for what the PS5 and Xbox Series X are truly capable of when not held back by the world's warnings.