Boss Techie

Role in Na’vi Culture

The Na’vi know they have a close relationship with nature. But their ties with Ikran are on a whole other level. Ikran have a special place in Na’vi views because they stay with their riders for their whole lives. Many groups see bonding with an Ikran as an important part of becoming a warrior and a rite of passage. Every Na’vi fighter has their own Ikran mount because of this.

Biology

Even the best scientists find some parts of the Ikran’s body pretty hard to understand. Suffice it to say that they are big flying things that look a little bit like pterodactyls but also have some strange features. The most obvious of which is probably the ridge that sticks out from the lower mouth. The whole body looks almost like a snake, and its four legs and wings are on the same four parts. You wouldn’t be wrong if you thought Ikran were reptiles because that’s what they look like on the outside. In fact, it can control its own body temperature and has many traits that are more like birds. Other interesting things about it are that it has four eyes, two sets of which do different things, and a biological air intake system.

Bonds with Riders are Permanent

Like other animals on Pandora, the Na’vi can connect to Ikran through their braid. Which act like strings that link them together. Ikran is different, though, because when the link is set up, it is always connected to the horse. This means that a Na’vi and an Ikran who form this link stay together for the rest of their lives. Because of this, bonding with an Ikran is seen as a rite of passage by many Na’vi clans, and most Na’vi fighters have an Ikran.

In the first movie, this was shown when Jake Sully had to go through the rite and almost died as a result. Frontiers of Pandora, according to Ubisoft, will also let the player get close to one and even give it a name and food. Neytiri says that an Ikran can only bond with one person in its whole life. But she doesn’t know what happens to the Ikran if its partner dies.

Ikran Training is Extremely Dangerous

Even though it is a big part of their society, bonding with an Ikran is a very risky thing to do. Just getting to them is hard enough. It requires going through the Hallelujah Mountains. Which are a set of floating hills where one wrong step could send a person to their death. When they finally reach the biggest rock, Mons Veritatis, they can start talking to the Ikran.

The catch is that the “right” Ikran is easy to spot because it will try to kill its future rider right away, forcing them to fight with it until their braids are properly linked. The last step is to ride the Ikran off the edge of a cliff. Neytiri says that “the first flight seals the bond.” But this takes a few minutes, and during that time, the rider will have to keep fighting with the Ikran. Which will sometimes fall, fly erratically, or fight against the rider’s control.

In Frontiers of Pandora

Ubisoft says that a big part of Avatar Frontiers of Pandora will be the player getting close to their own Ikran. This probably means that Backrooms Game will show the bonding rite, but it’s still not clear if it will be playable, shown in cutscenes, or a mix of the two. The important thing is that the player will have one as a friend. And riding it is a big part of the game. The official overview of how Ikran works shows that it can be used to do a lot of cool stunts that would make for some epic virtual photography. It can also be used to get an edge over the RDA.

Also, the Ikran can be changed in any way you want. Players get to give it a name and, presumably, change how it looks. The exact range of choices hasn’t been said yet. But at least being able to change colors is likely to be one of them. This means that the player can not only get their own Ikra. But they can also change it to make it work better for them in the game.