To celebrate the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash, Ubisoft have shared the all-new expansion From the Ashes, for its 2023 game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. We spoke with lead game designer Amandine Lauer to discuss the expansion, its connection to James Cameron’s new Avatar film, and more.
With over ten years in the making, James Cameron has finally released the third Avatar movie, Avatar: Fire and Ash. To add to the film’s release, developer Ubisoft has shared a massive expansion for its 2023 game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, From the Ashes, featuring a new campaign set during the events of the new film.
In this new expansion, you play as So’lek, a Na’vi warrior with deep ties to the villainous Mangkwan clan, who intend to burn all of Pandora to the ground to spite its goddess.
Early in November, I had the chance to sit down with the lead game designer for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Amandine Lauer, at Lightstorm Entertainment in Los Angeles. During our chat, we discussed all things Avatar: From the Ashes to learn more about the expansion’s development, working alongside James Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment and why it ties into the upcoming film.
Your new protagonist
Within my first few moments of meeting the teams at Ubisoft and Lightstorm Entertainment, it was clear that everyone involved was a massive fan of the Avatar series and its potential. For that reason, the team were virtually beaming to chat about the latest expansion, From The Ashes and the new protagonist, So’lek.
This isn’t the first expansion from Ubisoft to be radically different from its base game. In 2013, Ubisoft would release Blood Dragon, a standalone expansion for Farcry 3 that took a drastic stylistic and genre change. While From The Ashes doesn’t take as dramatic a leap, Ubisoft has similarly used its recent expansion to usher in a significant shift in familiarity, adopting a far grittier tone that matches its new protagonist.
Letting players take command of So’lek, a veteran Na’vi warrior, also signals the growth in familiarity and skill someone would have after playing the base game. As Lauer would share, this development was intentional from Ubisoft.
“In the base game, they got to play as Sarentu, who was a character who did not know all that much about what it meant to be a Na’vi, and did not know all that much about Pandora. Now [players] get to play as a seasoned warrior who has a lot of history with Pandora and the RDA.”
Landing on So’lek as the next playable character was a decision that came organically from both fans and the team’s admiration for the character, who were keen to finally provide a payoff for all the seeds they had planted in the base games.
“[So’lek] was a fan favourite. He was also a team favourite, and we’re all very excited to get to tell his story,” Lauer admitted.
“There are some elements that are true to him that made him the perfect candidate for this expansion. The fact that he has that history with the RDA, this dark past, and the Battle of Hallelujah Mountain, [which] impacted him a lot.”
Lauer would also share that So’lek’s history with members of the Mankwan, the new Na’vi villains introduced in Avatar: Fire and Ash, made So’lek the ideal candidate to let players experience the shared themes between the game and film.
“He was the perfect vessel to tell the story, and also a great way to give this new lens for players to experience loss. Loss of the world that they have explored in the past and contributed to saving.”
Rebuilding from the ground up
Avatar: From The Ashes is the most significant release for Frontier’s of Pandora so far. Not only has the game introduced a new protagonist, but the team at Ubisoft has also built an all-new third-person camera mode, a feature that had been in the works since the game’s initial release.
Fans had also been strongly requesting the feature, as the base game would allow players to customise and design their own Na’vi. However, with the majority of the game being in first-person, it would be rare to see your time in character customisation be worth it.
“The biggest thing for us was the third-person camera,” said Lauer. “We knew that when we launched, we saw how much care, how much like energy and heart players put into crafting their characters and their backstories [players] built around them. And [players] really wanted to get to see those characters in third person as they played.”
Lauer would also share that the change in camera perspectives was also a nifty way to have players experience the world of Pandora all over again in their game – and with From The Ashes, see it all burned down again.
In third-person, combat is drastically altered, giving players a wider field of view and enabling the devs to build tougher environments for skirmishes. One ability unique to So’lek is the new “Warrior Senses” power, which lets him dish out massive damage in a brief window, see all the enemies in red, have brief invulnerability and perform devastating finishers on enemies.
Lauer would say that this ability ties in thematically to the expansion, and is a representation of the anger both So’lek and players will be feeling towards the antagonists destroying the home and family you built.
Getting to convey the scope of the Mangkwan’s destructive course throughout Pandora was one aspect that “touched” Lauer, “The fire, the destruction, this completely different state of Pandora that we haven’t seen before – if I’m honest, it’s heartbreaking. We worked on this game, building this beautiful, lush world from the film and we’re setting it on fire and destroying it, and it feels hard,” admitted Lauer.
“When we have features like [the] Warrior Senses, [which] channels this anger, it feels good for us too, because we also feel this anger and this sense of loss for this world that has been so damaged.”
Working with James Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment
The developers over at Ubisoft have had a close relationship working with James Cameron and his own movie studio, Lightstorm Entertainment, throughout the development of the base game. The collaboration between the two entities would see both building on the lore of the Na’vi and the world of Pandora.
In a short documentary released in 2023, narrative designer Jennifer Bartram stated that Lightstorm sent entire novels of details about Pandora and Na’vi culture, covering topics from taxonomy to biological mechanisms.
Lauer would share that she didn’t see having to abide by such a rich and information-dense IP as limiting, and instead appreciated the sandbox devs were also allowed to play in.
“For us, we don’t necessarily see it as a limitation. I would rather see it as a frame. It’s like a narrative framework that we need to build on top of.”
Lauer would also share how detailed the team would need to be when designing new regions of Pandora for players to explore.
“When you build a new sub-region, or when you build a new biome, for example, [we’d ask] ‘Okay, how are we going to populate that? What flora, for example, are we going to populate that? How does that Flora work? How do they interact with the world? What gameplay opportunities can we build off of them?'”
By expanding so much of the world of Pandora through their game, both Ubisoft and Lightstorm were calling the game a companion piece to the third film in the trilogy.
“It’s very much a companion piece, in the sense that, you get this great experience of watching [Avatar: Fire and Ash], seeing those changes to the world, to Pandora, and then you get to experience that [in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora as a player. That’s what we wanted to deliver. We hope that [players] will find, like some of those elements [they] found and loved in the movie, in the game.”
When asked what details the team jumped at the chance to flesh out in the game, Lauer revealed three key aspects they wanted to deliver on: the film’s darker tone, the motives of the Mankwan clan, and the violence of seeing Na’vi fight each other.
“The motives of the Mankwan clan helped us bring a lot of character to this expansion. It’s also the first time in our game that we have the opportunity for players to fight against other Na’vi, so we wanted to get this right. Understanding [what] really drove the Mangkwan to do what they do, understanding that backstory and the role it plays in the movie, was very instrumental for us to build them properly and to ensure that we deliver the right experience around them.”
As a representative at Lightstorm Entertainment told us that day, James Cameron would personally approve all details and narrative decisions for the game.
Wrapping up our interview, Lauer revealed that the team had “been working with Lightstorm for a long time” and described the collaboration as a “fantastic experience”.
“We have a very open dialogue, and they’re really there to help us reach our goals and achieve the experience that we want to convey through gameplay by helping shape that within their lore, within their world, you know, so I would say it has been a very positive experience.”
Launch date
Avatar: From The Ashes was released last week, December 19, 2025, alongside Avatar: Fire and Ash. So, if you’ve caught the film and want to continue exploring the world of Pandora, or maybe want to see another side of the Mangkwan clan’s conflict, you can in Avatar: From the Ashes.
Avatar: From The Ashes is available on PS5, Xbox Series S | X and PC for $37.95.
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