Requiring you download a patch before you can play…
Are you excited to play the new Ubisoft open-world game as soon as you get your hands on it? Then you’ll have to wait because Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora requires a downloadable patch to play. And, as one prospective player discovered, that download will not be available until the game’s release.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has joined the growing list of games that cannot be played directly from the disk. Only a portion of the game is included on the disc, as with Halo Infinite, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Hogwarts Legacy, and several other titles.
If you try to play the game, you will be informed at some point, either immediately or shortly into the game, that a download is required. That’s all there is to it. You can’t proceed until you download the rest of the game.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s current cover states that a download is required, but as Reddit user Interesting-Squash81 discovered, even with the disc legally in their hands (we’ve had games arrive early), the game refused to download the new content.
“What’s the problem?” you may be wondering. “Don’t all games these days have Day One patches?” That is correct, but it is not the same thing. Day One patches, no matter how meaty they are, usually contain bug fixes, tweaks, and so on. However, they are not required. Most titles can be played directly from the disc if you take your console offline, but not Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
So, until Ubisoft flips a switch, the game Interesting-Squash81 paid $60+ for is essentially useless. It’s possible that the game is too big to fit on the disc, as has happened with some recent releases. However, in an age when games are delisted and a physical copy may be the only way to keep them, it’s not a good look.