Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora lands on Steam with huge Steam Deck issues

Avatar has found a new world to inhabit with Frontiers of Pandora finally on Steam, but it’s not good news for Steam Deck owners.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is finally on Steam, after being exclusive to the Ubisoft Store for PC players. This isn’t the first time big Ubisoft releases finally made their way to the platform, with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla leading by example.

Yet while it’s great for users who prioritize Steam on PC above all else, the same can’t be said for owners of the Steam Deck. Even despite the game finally being natively available for the first time, the game is almost unplayable on the handheld.

Until now, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was only accessible on Steam Deck through Ubisoft Connect. However, just like running Xbox Games Pass on the handheld, it required a lot of tinkering and tech know-how to get it running. Even then, the experience of playing Frontiers of Pandora on the go wasn’t ideal.

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Older comments on r/Steam Deck reveal that while it could run around 30 FPS, in reality, it mostly sat at 20 FPS and below. Or, in other cases, the game crashed entirely at start-up. With it finally being natively available on the Steam Deck for the first time, hopes were that it’d finally be able to run without issue.

Alas, that has not been the case. According to GamingOnLinux, the game won’t launch. Regardless of the type of Proton used, whether it’s Proton 9 or Proton Experimental, Frontiers of Pandora refuses to start up.

In the miraculous moments it does manage to run, the performance was “simply unplayable” according to site owner Liam Dawe. Even with its brand-new natively available version, its performance still resembles that of its Ubisoft Connect equivalent.

Its broken state on Steam Deck wasn’t experienced by them alone. Steam Deck Gaming also posted about playing Frontiers of Pandora on the handheld, explaining on X/Twitter that it’s “more broken than the Ubisoft version.”

When asked by a fellow X/Twitter user if they were going to do a review video, they replied stating that it doesn’t even launch to begin with.

For the time being, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora hasn’t been through Valve’s testing process on Steam Deck. However, with its almost completely unplayable state, it likely won’t be fully verified any time soon. Hopefully, like Kingdom Hearts on Steam Deck, it’ll one day be the ideal version to play on the go.