It has been a long time coming for fans of the fabled space-trading game, but today Frontier Developments have announced their latest expansion – ‘Elite Dangerous: Odyssey‘ – which finally lets players walk around on distant worlds.
For those of you unaware of ‘Elite Dangerous’, the core game was a modern update of the classic Acornsoft game ‘Elite’, which was originally released in 1984 on the BBC Micro, followed by the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and pretty much every platform since. Launching on 2014 on PC, ‘Elite Dangerous’ allows the player to take control of their own starship in a huge open galaxy of players online, trading and fighting to gain bigger and better ships until reaching the rank of “Elite”.
Over the years, Frontier has added various major expansions, including the ability to land on planets, teaming up in squadrons to fight aliens, and the addition of Fleet Carriers, giving players their own mobile base of operations. However, one major thing was always missing… All the action took place in your ship. They did add in some character customisation, so you could see what your avatar looked like, but you could never actually walk anywhere… which is where Odyssey comes in.
The new expansion, which is due in 2021, will finally let you out of your ship and adventure on planets under the power of your own two virtual feet. They are also adding in missions which can be performed on foot, which mirror the space missions such as diplomatic operations, combat and trading.
Another new feature, which fans have been crying out for, is the addition of worlds with an atmosphere. Up until now, you could explore planet surfaces using your SRV buggy, but they were always somewhat dead lifeless worlds. As you can see in the trailer, that is about to change, with the addition of sunny skied planets, and worlds populated with bases and NPC stations.
You can find out more about ‘Elite Dangerous: Odyssey’, due for release in Early 2021, on their website, and wishlist the game on Steam.
