Ubisoft’s upcoming Avatar game may be one of the biggest releases of December 2023, but PC players may have to go through uncommon launchers if they want to visit Pandora. If you’re wondering, here’s why Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora isn’t launching on Steam.
Why Isn’t Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora on Steam?
The fact of the matter is that Frontiers of Pandora isn’t on Steam because it’s developed by Ubisoft, a company that’s been trying to push its own storefront/launcher, named Ubisoft Connect, for years now. Ubisoft makes a point of not releasing its most recent titles onto its competitor’s platforms, ensuring that players who want to experience its newest games, like Avatar, will need to do so through Ubisoft Connect.
Related: Will Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Be on Xbox One PlayStation 4?
It’s a business move that makes sense financially, given that the publisher wouldn’t need to share any revenue with either Steam or Epic Games. At the same time, many players have pushed back on the need to install Ubisoft Connect to play the company’s catalog, insisting that having a launcher for a single publisher/studio is restrictive when compared to the sheer variety available on Epic and Steam.
In 2019, Ubisoft spokesperson Chris Early explained that the company was opting to shift away from Steam due to Epic’s more publisher-friendly approach to revenue splits. “It was a business decision to not put new releases on Steam and focus on the Epic Store and Ubisoft Store,” Early said. “Ubisoft fully supports Epic and their third-party distribution model, which is in the long-term, beneficial for publishers both large and indie and the video games industry.” Having said that, Ubisoft has since begun shying away from Epic, too, placing most of its weight behind Connect.
For those patient players out there who would prefer to add Frontiers of Pandora to their Steam library, I’d say you’ll need to wait around a year. Ubisoft generally brings their games to other storefronts after a period of exclusivity on Connect, but the actual window varies from title to title. Of course, while Avatar will be added on Steam, you’ll still need to download and install Ubisoft Connect to play it. That’s just the way the industry works these days. You could always just pick it up on Xbox Series X|S or PlayStation 5 if the option’s available to you. That way, you needn’t worry about any launchers at all.
