Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora released late last year to a somewhat mixed reception, with critics and fans alike praising the game’s visuals but lamenting its relative mundanity when it came to gameplay and exploration. Fortunately those who enjoyed the former on consoles will now be able to experience the world of Pandora in an even more visually pleasing manner, thanks to the surprise addition of a 40fps mode.
Patch 3.2 has been released for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and brings with it a number of fixes as well as some new features. On the PC side, Intel’s XESS image upscaler is now supported – though AMD’s FSR 3 has been temporarily rolled back to an older version to prevent certain issues.
By far the biggest addition however is the new 40fps mode on consoles. Avatar initially launched with 30fps and 60fps modes on the Xbox Series X and PS5, with the former (according to Digital Foundry) running between 1296p and 1800p, and the latter lowering resolutions to between 864p and 1260p – while also reducing overall details across across the board (such as LOD, foliage, shadows and more).
The addition of the 40fps mode is interesting as not only will it possibly allow for the same quality enhancements as the 30fps mode but at a higher frame rate, but adds a new option for Series S players – who were previously limited to just the 30fps mode.
Different devs have tackled 40fps in different ways, with some keeping visuals identical to the 30fps mode, while others make small bespoke and custom tweaks to ensure a smooth performance. Either way, it is exciting to see 40fps continue to be more widely adopted, especially as more and more players get their hands on 120hz displays.
KitGuru says: What do you think of 40fps modes? Can your display support this? Is 40fps the perfect medium between performance and visuals? Let us know down below.