Elite: Dangerous

 PC
User Score
6.7

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1913 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,150 out of 1913
  2. Mixed: 209 out of 1913
  3. Negative: 554 out of 1913

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  1. Goosebump
    Dec 26, 2014
    4
    Had been looking forward to this very much. The reviews all sounded good and the videos looked great.

    Now that I've parted with my money and installed it, I couldn't be more disappointed with how utterly rubbish the new player experience is. The in game tutorials are rubbish - enormously disjointed and assume far too much. Rather than have in-game videos, you're flicked out of the    Had been looking forward to this very much. The reviews all sounded good and the videos looked great.

    Now that I've parted with my money and installed it, I couldn't be more disappointed with how utterly rubbish the new player experience is. The in game tutorials are rubbish - enormously disjointed and assume far too much. Rather than have in-game videos, you're flicked out of the game to YouTube to watch some video that again, assumes you know a heap of stuff as it proceeds to talk about "basics" that are not basic at all.

    There is obviously a solid game in here somewhere based on the number of positive reviews and if you have the patience to try and muddle through this minefield as a new player then you might find it. As it is, keep your money - at least until they fix the new player experience (or if you're already versed in such wildly mystifying "basics").    … Expand
  2. sclark13
    Sep 13, 2015
    4
    Played off and on since December 2014. The game added a few ships but is still incredibly unfocused at making any particular activity work as intended. There is no reason to play with people, and no reason to think one's (or a very large group's) actions make any kind of impact on the world. Ships have very little thought put into their design, with several ships just being shunned due toPlayed off and on since December 2014. The game added a few ships but is still incredibly unfocused at making any particular activity work as intended. There is no reason to play with people, and no reason to think one's (or a very large group's) actions make any kind of impact on the world. Ships have very little thought put into their design, with several ships just being shunned due to their lack of role.

    Co-op with wingmen is terrible and penalizes players. Exploring is really boring, especially when there are simulators like space engine that let you visit different planets and stellar phenomena without the **** tedium of managing ship resources. Exploration would be cool, but there is no high reward for it, no satisfaction from seeing one gas giant vs. another, etc.    … Expand
  3. Daisai
    Jan 7, 2015
    4
    If this game was released about 10 years ago it would have been decent with the lack of content, however in 2014/2015 a game which costs this much should have alot more content then it currently has.
    And even the little content that it does have does not work.
    If you are thinking about buying this game, ask yourself, are you willing to spend the money you normally spend on a finished    If this game was released about 10 years ago it would have been decent with the lack of content, however in 2014/2015 a game which costs this much should have alot more content then it currently has.
    And even the little content that it does have does not work.

    If you are thinking about buying this game, ask yourself, are you willing to spend the money you normally spend on a finished product on a product which is not even half done.

    Yes it has alot of star systems, however you can not do anything in more then 99% of these start systems.

    If you buy this product you are not buying a product, you are spending some money in the hope that 1 day the product might be up to a standard normal people/developers might call "ready to release".

    Don't get fooled when they say the scope of this game is huge, since this all depends on their future.
    If they decide to release this game on a console ( which i think they first intended ) the scope of this game gets alot smaller, since consoles are lesser platforms in terms of performance.
    Because at this moment already a playstation 4 has 2 year old hardware, after 1 or 2 years thats even older.
    So if they release this game on consoles they have to take this into account when they release new content.

    So all in all, think well before buying this game, i did and am not pleased with what i got.
    The game is far from finished or even in a state one would call beta, this game shows signs of not even beta testing at all.    … Expand
  4. Johnman
    Dec 16, 2014
    4
    Not a good game right now. Pretty graphics, great sound design, and barely any gameplay. You will exhaust all it's possibilities in one day.

    Multiplayer interaction is close to nil despite always online DRM.

    It's a game made for old people who hasn't played anything but Farmville since 1984. They consider it a "hardcore space sim". It's sad what a waste of potential this game is.
  5. BernardTheBeast
    Feb 2, 2020
    4
    Don't look at Elite Dangerous as a game. It isn't. Elite Dangerous is a piece of software that wants to be Flight Simulator, Trains Simulator, a space combat simulator, and an MMO, all in one. Does it succeed? In my opinion, no.

    Here's the good stuff you can look forward to: ► A space game where you can choose to play Solo, with a Private Group (friends only), or Open (open online    Don't look at Elite Dangerous as a game. It isn't. Elite Dangerous is a piece of software that wants to be Flight Simulator, Trains Simulator, a space combat simulator, and an MMO, all in one. Does it succeed? In my opinion, no.

    Here's the good stuff you can look forward to:

    ► A space game where you can choose to play Solo, with a Private Group (friends only), or Open (open online multiplayer with instanced maps holding a set number of players at a time). Options!
    ► A space game where you can choose between the space-game trifecta of Combatant/Trader/Explorer or incorporate all three into your play style. Options!
    ► A space game where you can customize the loadout of your spaceship with equipment ranging from a dozen different types of weapons, armors, internal components for offense, defense, bounty hunting, passenger carrying, cargo hauling, planet exploring, etcetera. Options!
    ► A space game where you can fly across a huge, seemingly limitless galaxy, where every dot on your Galaxy Map (and there's millions of them) represents a sector of space you can travel to and explore, possibly for the very first time that anyone has ever gone there...! Options!
    ► A space game with fairly solid graphics, a cool premise, a good simulato-yet-action-focused-yet-exploration-capable feel to it. Especially if you have a good flight control system/joystick, TrackIR, or VR, you'll probably want to buy this just to take advantage of your hardware.

    Here's the bad stuff you can look forward to:

    • Grinding. If you want ranks, money, or to simply explore, prepare to spend months grinding. To get satisfaction from traveling and doing what you want to do, it's going to require money and ranks, so you'll have to grind. This is where MMO syndrome comes in: the infamous "Engineers" system requires you to find components found RNG about the universe, which can take a long time. These Engineering goals are essential in making your ship perform with lower risk of dying due to unfair AI or players who have an Engineered ship and want you dead for some reason.

    • AI with no personality that mostly sends text messages to you (very little voice dialogue/radio chatter) and cheats in combat, their level of cheating determined by their difficulty (AI are immune to certain weapons, techniques and strategies, have accuracy/damage that is disconnected to their ship's actual loadout). The lowest ranked AI will fly stupidly in box patterns without fighting back, while the highest ranked AI will pull J-turns, flank you, shoot you perfectly with 360 degree turreted weapons, and take out your subsystems with flawless accuracy. Cheap.

    • No purpose or overall objective other than what you make for yourself. While there are more interesting missions other than "Kill/Trade/Explore", you might never experience them because you're too busy grinding to get a ship actually capable of doing those complex missions.

    Limited depth & bugs:
    • You can't land on planets unless you buy Horizons DLC; however, they're all slight variations of either a crater-marked orange moon, or a large, rugged and mountainous orange moon anyway

    • Using Multi-Crew, you can jump into the passenger seat of another player's spaceship! But you'll experience lag issues, sudden disconnects, game-crashing errors, and a whole bunch of other bugs. You also can't walk around the ship, or wave to your friend, or anything other than giving the pilot player an extra pip to their power distribution and maybe taking over one of their fighters or turrets.

    • You can land on space stations! But there's only about 6 different looking interiors in the game you'll see most often on average

    • You can buy any ship you want, but customizing the ship's appearance is real-money microtransaction based: $10 from the third-party Frontier store, and only applies to that specific class of ship. This game's out-of-game store is horrendously expensive, and feels like it's one step short of introducing lootboxes and XP boosters due to the excessive grind.

    I honestly like this game. But I literally don't have the time to play this game enough to gain enough money/ranks to do anything fun. I can't do combat/explore/trade for fear of my ship being destroyed and having to spend another 10 hours grinding for money. I can't participate in events because I haven't spent the 1,000 hours grinding to get an Engineered ship capable of not being destroyed. Everything I want to do relies upon grinding to get there, and the grinding itself gets very boring, very quickly.

    The satisfaction from playing with my X52 Joystick, TrackIR, or VR, is worth only an hour or two at most, because afterwards the game goes from 'game' to 'chore' to 'second job'.

    Do I recommend this game? Well, after doing the math, I have to say: "No, unless there's an incredible sale". This game is worth $30 at most, and that's counting cosmetic microtransactions.    … Expand
  6. NeoMorph
    Apr 7, 2015
    4
    This game isn't finished. It's still a beta in my mind.

    For example mining... what a load of twaddle. No mining scanners (so trying to find decent mineral loads suck), huge asteroids that run out of content after a couple of chips are removed (and you cannot tell which roids are empty AND each chip is only a small percentage of an actual sellable unit so if you have 99% of platinum you    This game isn't finished. It's still a beta in my mind.

    For example mining... what a load of twaddle. No mining scanners (so trying to find decent mineral loads suck), huge asteroids that run out of content after a couple of chips are removed (and you cannot tell which roids are empty AND each chip is only a small percentage of an actual sellable unit so if you have 99% of platinum you can't even sell it yet!!!), every time you remove a chip you have to chase it down with your ship and scoop it up and then return to the roid to chip off another - total pain in theass!, AI miners that jump in and start nicking ore from the asteroid that you are mining but if you shoot them YOU ARE FINED!!!!! Come on FFS... I loved mining in Eve Online... This however is total crap. Also the AI miners can suck the chips right into their craft but yours can't... Weird!

    The holographic displays are often washed out by the excessive glare... which is why holographic displays will never catch on. Look pretty but are poor replacement for a good LCD.

    The galaxy map is another good example of "looks pretty" but is actually frustrating... Stars that you are looking at fade out at the wrong moment so it gets hard to track routes. Also trying to find a station that sells items you want is annoying because it takes so long to load up system displays... also you can't select destinations from an in system display (say WHAT? Did they even think this through). There should be less of a load time than the galaxy view but it is the opposite. I think the 1984 version loaded quicker lol.

    For example I wanted to find a station that I could pay the fine for killing the claim stealing miner I killed... After I waited 60 seconds for a system display to pop up ( yeah, I waited 60 seconds and it STILL didn't appear) I said sod it and killed the game.

    I loved Elite back when it was released in 1984. This should have been much better but other than the nice graphics it seems less. Maybe once they finish the game it will be worth playing but at the moment it's grind central (and this is from a player that normally loves the grind).

    I really should have remembered that I said I would never buy another Braben game after First Encounters.    … Expand
  7. flexy123
    Jan 7, 2015
    4
    I played in the Beta, mind you, before Retail hit the shelves. In the Beta, I made a lot of money until I finally was able to get an Anaconda. I also got me a shiny new joystick, throttle, etc...etc....
    I have no desire to play this game (even if it's right there installed on my HD) since I "feel" I have already seen everything this game has to offer. You can only have "so much" fun    I played in the Beta, mind you, before Retail hit the shelves. In the Beta, I made a lot of money until I finally was able to get an Anaconda. I also got me a shiny new joystick, throttle, etc...etc....
    I have no desire to play this game (even if it's right there installed on my HD) since I "feel" I have already seen everything this game has to offer. You can only have "so much" fun spending some days, a week or two flying in a dark, empty space from A to B to make credits and to buy a new ship. How long do you think would such a "game" sustain motivation? Others are correct, this game has not one yota of what I'd expect from a new game which calls itself MMORPG, this is user interaction, communication, PvP, trade, building etc. This game has NOTHING of that. It is a game for 45+ year old nerds (like me) who buy an expensive PC rig and then "enjoy" flying in an empty, dead space from A to B with other 45+ year old nerds. In other words: It's incredibly boring. A game concept that was cool in 1983 can hardly sustain 30 years later. When I get into a game today I want to feel I play in a "living world" where I can meet and play with others, where adventures and challenges arise from playing with others, discovering new places etc...but ED entirely failed in this MM aspect of the game. Another HUGE turn-off for me is that the "simulation" aspect of this game is a mere illusion, and one done badly actually. You can not actually fly to other star systems, instead you "jump" from one "box" to another, the universe as such is therefore not really connected since you're only always in a tiny local "box" which you cannot escape unless you get into Hyperspace mode. If you are not hyperspacing you could target another system and you will NEVER reach it. I am aware that this is due to technical limitation and other games in essence do the same thing, but for me it's a huge turnoff to know that.
    And...PULEASSE stop it with stupid comments such as "good foundation" or "there will be cool expansions coming out". You don't enjoy a game because "there will be great things added in the future". You play a game NOW, not "in the future". And Frontier will have a hell of a bad time "adding" stuff to the game since this is the main mistake they made from the beginning: Rather than building upon a good foundation which deserves a name such as MMRPG..they merely *added* features, this is why anything *added* appears halfassed, such as multiplayer, communications, missions etc. If the game at its core is already built wrong (netcode....) you will have a hard time to make it better by "adding" stuff.    … Expand
  8. CoSm1c_gAm3r
    Apr 6, 2015
    4
    I am quite disappointed by "next" game from Elite universe. This game also suffer from casual targeted crowd.

    They made some idiotic design for lateral rotation that will make your teeth sparkle from grinding it while you try to rotate just to see for example station details or land on landing pad! I heard all excuses/explanations and all are totally retarded and all of them made me    I am quite disappointed by "next" game from Elite universe. This game also suffer from casual targeted crowd.

    They made some idiotic design for lateral rotation that will make your teeth sparkle from grinding it while you try to rotate just to see for example station details or land on landing pad!
    I heard all excuses/explanations and all are totally retarded and all of them made me laugh.
    Small ships and medium ships rotation rate is more than 1 minute to make 360 degree turn while in full stop. That is just plain retarded design. Nothing can excuse such idiotic design. NOTHING!

    Idiotic boost system that uses always the same amount of power but when you are at "TOP SPEED" then adding 1-10 m/s cost still the same amount of power from capacitors :D
    Also any boost would kill pilot because it creates so many G's that only robots and androids would deal with it without any problem. But cargo would turn into mashup so passengers would need to be frozen hard or something just to survive that trip with immortal player character that can be killed by ship explosion.

    About that. ships explode because ED future didn't deal with instability of explosives so if magic HP meter go down then ship is turning into big POFF! xD
    I can compare that to Star Citizen and I see that Chris Roberts used more common sense. In SC ships mainly are destroyed and if more damage is dealt or they crash into asteroid then it fell apart while in ED ship crashing into asteroid just bumps away then after a second it decides to go boom! How dumb is that!!! :D

    If you love details in design and value sense, logic, and basic believability then this game is not for you.
    I bought it when it was in beta and even if I don't like this game then I am not totally disappointed because there was very long period in gaming industry that space sim was ignored and SC with ED may change that so it was worth to support this game but it is not satisfying for my taste and my demands. To bad that it was touched by casuals demand as lots of modern games. Dumbed down just to earn money on not demanding players. Sad modern gaming reality.    … Expand
  9. C_M_K
    Dec 16, 2014
    4
    Currently Elite has a decent framework in place, but there's no real 'game' there -- you can literally experience all of the content in a few hours and it changes extremely little regardless of what system you go to or what ship you're flying.

    Pros: Very pretty (aside from the painfully dated and barely functional HUD). Amazing sound. A gazillion star systems to go 'explore'.    Currently Elite has a decent framework in place, but there's no real 'game' there -- you can literally experience all of the content in a few hours and it changes extremely little regardless of what system you go to or what ship you're flying.

    Pros:
    Very pretty (aside from the painfully dated and barely functional HUD).
    Amazing sound.
    A gazillion star systems to go 'explore'.

    Cons:
    Every single gameplay system -- trading, mining, pirating, bounty hunting -- is simplistic in the extreme, most are broken in one way or another, and frankly all of it has been done far better elsewhere.

    Eleventy gazillion systems to explore means little when the vast, vast bulk of them are basically identical.

    Multiplayer? What's that? The game's multiplayer features are so barebones as to essentially be nonexistent.

    Online only. This wouldn't be a con if the netcode (especially the perplexing decision to go with P2P architecture in an online-only game) wasn't so flaky, if there were actual multiplayer features that worked, or if there was, well, any meaningful reason whatsoever for it the game to be online, but the netcode is flaky as hell, there aren't meaningful (or even usable) multiplayer features, and there's no real reason for the game to need to be online-only other than as DRM.

    Basically Frontier has created a universe simulation that you, the player, have little to no effect on. It's a place where you can fly around and see the same systems, the same stations, and the same ships 400 billion times. Sadly they forgot to include any gameplay beyond the most barebones in there.

    At best the game is being pushed out the door six months too early, at worst Frontier has actually made the game they intended and they really do think that copying a thirty year old game with some new graphics will do well. Either way, best to avoid this one for a while and see if they eventually actually add some gameplay before it crashes and burns.    … Expand
  10. Phallex
    Aug 7, 2015
    4
    I'd love to love this game. Unfortunately, once you've gotten used to cruising around and looking at stars, docking, dogfights etc it just becomes really boring. There's not really anything to drive you in game. Finding your teammates is very hard to do properly, and even if you do manage to meet up within the hour, you're stuck with the same problem...what shall we do? Shoot some moreI'd love to love this game. Unfortunately, once you've gotten used to cruising around and looking at stars, docking, dogfights etc it just becomes really boring. There's not really anything to drive you in game. Finding your teammates is very hard to do properly, and even if you do manage to meet up within the hour, you're stuck with the same problem...what shall we do? Shoot some more AI...er....ok....??

    If you're looking for a new X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter type game, hold your breath for Valkyrie, just maybe they'll pull it off.. Elite is just a beautiful simulation showing how big space really is, even when you have a really fast ship.    … Expand
  11. Basiclife
    Dec 17, 2015
    4
    Promising Game, Idiotic Company

    The game has an awful lot of potential. Playing with the rift is truly f-ing awesome. When I first got hold of E:D I sunk a couple of hundred hours into it and then left it alone for a while to see what came along next. Apparently the answer is ... Nothing. You can buy a whole _new_ game which includes the base game (and some new features like landing    Promising Game, Idiotic Company

    The game has an awful lot of potential. Playing with the rift is truly f-ing awesome. When I first got hold of E:D I sunk a couple of hundred hours into it and then left it alone for a while to see what came along next.

    Apparently the answer is ... Nothing. You can buy a whole _new_ game which includes the base game (and some new features like landing on planets) but there's not much in the way of content (at least, not when compared to MMORPGs as the devs keep trying to do). The new game? More expensive than the original because it includes the base game. Which I already have.

    I don't mind the money, I object to the shady business practices, broken promises and (frankly) half-baked level of implementation for all existing features/content.

    But hey, why finish developing a game when you can add a few new features and charge the same all over again? Ok, they haven't _actually_ added most of the stuff you're paying for but they will. Honest!

    Looking at their track record for keeping promises to date, I'm not optimistic.

    In summary: Really good foundation to make a truly epic game, but it's being used to make a series of half-broken, incomplete, full-priced games, one every year to keep milking you.

    Oh and as an added bonus, you too can have 10 copies of the game in your Steam library to really clutter things up.    … Expand
  12. Xelluse
    Apr 20, 2016
    4
    4 and just cos of great Physics release.
    Gameplay interesting on start, but nothing special, boring and very repetitive in late game.
    Graphics not much better than in EVE. Very shiny, feels wet and looks like Korean MMO more, good for old space games. Nice light effects. Game is stable, but will overlock even good gaming PC. Maybe someone like it - design looks like in scifi movies    4 and just cos of great Physics release.
    Gameplay interesting on start, but nothing special, boring and very repetitive in late game.
    Graphics not much better than in EVE. Very shiny, feels wet and looks like Korean MMO more, good for old space games.
    Nice light effects.
    Game is stable, but will overlock even good gaming PC.
    Maybe someone like it - design looks like in scifi movies from 60s, not bad, but was expecting something realistic, especially for that high system requirements.
    I never played Elite before and after this game 100% will not do that in future, In my opinion game is good to purchase just on huge sales.    … Expand
  13. Pannon
    Dec 26, 2015
    4
    The gamer site reviews reflect the score, that has hopes and wishful thinking has attached to it.
    If you read them, note the date of the review. They reviewed the game not long after it was released and the game has (had) a huge potential to become something much bigger. The reviewers gave the high scores for high hopes. A year later, the game barely changed, beside a few additional    The gamer site reviews reflect the score, that has hopes and wishful thinking has attached to it.
    If you read them, note the date of the review. They reviewed the game not long after it was released and the game has (had) a huge potential to become something much bigger. The reviewers gave the high scores for high hopes. A year later, the game barely changed, beside a few additional features, which ultimately just gave the game more grind, instead of adding meaningful content.
    If you play it for a few hours you get the vibe, that you may have to do a lot of things to progress anywhere, and perhaps you get excited, just thinking about the endless possibilities and options and choices.
    Give it another 10 hours, and your entire gameplay consist of preparing to start to play the game and waiting for that moment, when you start really playing. Unfortunately, that moment never comes. What you do in your first hour, is what you will do for the rest of the time. Either trade back/forth between stations, which consist of taking off, traveling - loading screen -traveling - landing, or fighting endlessly spawning enemy ships, which change absolutely nothing, whether it comes factions or affiliations of various powers. All the other ships you may see as traffic is nothing else, but background filler. They serve no purpose or function, beside they are giving the illusion of "things happening". You can actually test this by trying to follow a ship, which will end up traveling somewhere infinitely, or landing at an non particular space station, and then taking off and doing over and over, without selling something or fighting.
    You can also test, that whether those ships you blow up makes any difference to their faction or base. They do nothing.
    Eventually, you will realise, that the entire universe is created for you, and outside of your visual radius, nothing really goes on, and everything ceases to exist as soon you leave. Unidentified signals sources pop up for you randomly, if you fly slow and their content isn't determined, until you stop to investigate by dropping out of hyperspace.
    Sound effects is great. That's why I'm giving it a 4. If nobody else, then it's the sound team, that perhaps did their best to make something.
    I see, a lot of people praising graphics. I don't see it that way. It's not hard to draw space and place objects floating in it.It's much harder to create Earth based fantasy worlds or actual locations with buildings, vegetation.
    I can't give more than 4, and if I would not consider the sound and music, this game is maybe a 2.    … Expand
  14. koyukon
    Mar 1, 2016
    4
    It looks amazing but it's just tedious to play. 99% of the time is spent traveling and what there is of gameplay is effectively meaningless mindless activities. I'd only return to it for the sake of planetary discovery but I always find myself quitting in deep space due to lack of reward. It seems that it is better to let others play it and follow their discoveries than to play it myself.It looks amazing but it's just tedious to play. 99% of the time is spent traveling and what there is of gameplay is effectively meaningless mindless activities. I'd only return to it for the sake of planetary discovery but I always find myself quitting in deep space due to lack of reward. It seems that it is better to let others play it and follow their discoveries than to play it myself. I really appreciate the touches of science and realism, but it just lacks a lot of content.… Expand
  15. MPCPRO
    Dec 16, 2014
    4
    Has potential, I enjoy the graphics and the great sound design but as many other people write there is a lack of gameplay elements. It feels really empty and it's really hard playing with other friends which forces people mostly to just solo out on their own. I hope with the future expansions the game might live up to its potential, but at the moment it is just an empty shell.
  16. Squareski
    Oct 2, 2015
    4
    I've given it 18 hours of my life. It's hard to describe. On one hand, it is quite addictive, in that, you're trying to build the funds for all those upgrades and bigger and better ships, and graphically it is very beautiful. On the other, however, the fun, just like the game, is mostly lost in a vast void of space. It has brief moments of excitement, glimpses of game play out of theI've given it 18 hours of my life. It's hard to describe. On one hand, it is quite addictive, in that, you're trying to build the funds for all those upgrades and bigger and better ships, and graphically it is very beautiful. On the other, however, the fun, just like the game, is mostly lost in a vast void of space. It has brief moments of excitement, glimpses of game play out of the corner of your eye...but sadly, it's mostly hours of doing nothing, despite trying not to. This is only part of the story...if you factor in the bizarre game mechanic of real time quest timers in solo mode, that expire while you're out of the game entirely, it just makes matters worse. Ensure you don't have kids, or work, or have a social life as you'll have to sink hours of uninterrupted time into the void that is Elite Dangerous.… Expand
  17. Veryance
    Mar 5, 2015
    4
    Just the latest entry in the fad of selling an incomplete game as the whole product. The game dumps you into the deep end, probably as a way to obfuscate the fact that at the end of the day, there really isn't much to do. The learning curve is needlessly steep; everything you want/need to do will have to be gleaned from the internet, because the game won't teach you, or even provide theJust the latest entry in the fad of selling an incomplete game as the whole product. The game dumps you into the deep end, probably as a way to obfuscate the fact that at the end of the day, there really isn't much to do. The learning curve is needlessly steep; everything you want/need to do will have to be gleaned from the internet, because the game won't teach you, or even provide the tools in-game to find your answers. After the first couple hours of daunting gameplay, you realize that the tip of the iceberg is actually just the whole iceberg. Balance some spreadsheets, blow up bad guys, repeat. Not to mention that Frontier cleaves to the classic tightlipped-developers-that-think-their-playerbase-is-retarded ideology, which essentially precludes any hope for this game to right the many many things it gets wrong.
    That being said, it's gorgeous to play, and the sounds are amazing, so if you don't want anything more from your game then to fly around in space aimlessly, then this is right up your alley.    … Expand
  18. LeoKol
    Dec 16, 2014
    4
    DISCLAIMER: This is an objective review. Everyone giving the game 10/10 is lying to themselves, and you. That said, if you own, or are looking to own, an Oculus Rift, then this game is a must buy. The game is beautiful. It makes for a perfect Oculus Rift title thanks to it's stunning visuals, immense sense of scale and beautiful audio.

    tl;dr - Current state of the game: Grind credits to    DISCLAIMER: This is an objective review. Everyone giving the game 10/10 is lying to themselves, and you. That said, if you own, or are looking to own, an Oculus Rift, then this game is a must buy. The game is beautiful. It makes for a perfect Oculus Rift title thanks to it's stunning visuals, immense sense of scale and beautiful audio.

    tl;dr - Current state of the game: Grind credits to buy bigger ships so that you can grind credits better. Graphics & Gameplay has been improved over the original Elite (1984), but content has stayed the same (unless you count the 400 billion empty, lifeless, procedural star systems).

    Elite Dangerous will be a great game in another year or two. I have little doubt of that. However, as of the writing of this review, Elite is almost entirely unplayable. The foundations for a great game are all there, but there's little to keep players interested.

    Mining, exploration, combat and trading are the only activities currently open to players. You can either do any of these activities on your own, or you can accept a generic mission and do them for an npc you'll never meet or interact with. With exception to combat, all these systems are basic and repetitive.

    While there is a dynamic economy in the game, trading is hardly complicated when compared to that of games like X3 or EVE. You buy low, and you sell high. The only excitement comes in the form of random pirate and police attacks. You can observe changes in the economy, but, unless you enjoy watching numbers go up and down, I doubt you'll find this exciting.

    Exploration involves flying to new systems and pointing yourself at 'undiscovered' celestial objects & stations. You won't be stumbling into any ship graveyards or sentient nebulae. There are no surprises here and, unless you're an astronomer looking to observe binary stars & black holes, you probably won't find this very exciting either.

    Mining is even simpler. You find asteroids and you shoot at them. Maybe you'll get attacked by a pirate, maybe you won't. Combat, on the other hand, feels great and intuitive. The game's audio and HUD are highly immersive and really shine in combat. Unfortunately you'll most often find yourself fighting against AI due to the whole 400 billion star systems thing.

    There is no concrete system that promotes team-play, and you'll probably make more money fighting NPC's rather than players. The games selection of ships is also rather limited when compared to other titles (and they all look like geometric shapes).

    The biggest problem with the game right now is the fact that there is no end-game. There's nothing to strive for. You may set personal goals, like visiting a distant system or getting a certain ship, but, at the heart of it, everything you do ends with you making credits in order to make credits better.

    The living world is entirely a novelty, and will almost never directly impact you. You may have to go to another system to buy cheap goods, or you might note the presence of more police ships, but this will never make a significant impact on the way you play the game. You will never feel like you're doing something important. There is a giant disconnect between the world of the NPC's and the world of the players.

    There is a giant intergalactic war being waged, but unless you force yourself to care it's really of no consequence to you. You can't interact with NPC's, so there's very little to connect you to the troubles of the poor populace of miners living on some rock. You might visit a planet with billions of inhabitants, but the space around it will feel just as empty and lifeless as the distant reaches of the galaxy.

    So, all of this leaves you to motivate yourself. Sure, you can try to join one of the galactic empires and lead them to victory, but what's the point? No NPC will thank you, unless it comes in the form of a giant wall of text available as a generic contract in a space station. You won't get a limited edition ship, nor will you get the joy of watching or participating in any giant cinematic battles. There's no sense of urgency or need to drive you forward.

    All you have to do, is to make credits so that you can get upgrades simply for the sake of getting upgrades. The foundations for a great game are all there, but to call this release ready is a joke. I highly advice new players stay away from Elite until more content is added. I've honestly had more fun playing the Star Citizen alpha than I have playing the release-candidate version of Elite.

    To put it into contrast, imagine an X3 with better graphics and combat. Now imagine that you can't control more than one ship. That NPC's don't have a voice and communicate through text. That there is no single player story. That all space stations serve only one purpose. That you never see any other ships unless you're in combat or docking. That you can't own space stations. That exploration only leads to you finding floating credits. And, well, the list goes on...    … Expand
  19. christhenoob
    Dec 20, 2014
    4
    I want to love this game. I really do. I've been a backer since alpha and was really sold on the vision that they had. Unfortunately, the game that was released is not the game I imagined it to be. If you were expecting an MMO, I hate to disappoint, but this is not an MMO in any sense of the word.

    Interacting with other players when not completely broken is almost impossible due to the    I want to love this game. I really do. I've been a backer since alpha and was really sold on the vision that they had. Unfortunately, the game that was released is not the game I imagined it to be. If you were expecting an MMO, I hate to disappoint, but this is not an MMO in any sense of the word.

    Interacting with other players when not completely broken is almost impossible due to the sheer size of the universe. Although huge, I've never played a game that has felt so empty. I imagined roaming the galaxy pirating and bounty-hunting other players in epic battles of wits, but I'm lucky if I even see another player. Not to mention the hours upon hours of tedious grinding it takes to be even remotely equipped to do so.

    Playing with your friends is just impossible in the current version not only because the game lacks even the most basic of social tools, but because the game punishes you for playing with other players. Bounties are only awarded to the person with the last kill, missions are given and rewarded individually, you can't even see your friends half the time, multiplayer is just a downright mess.

    Don't get me wrong, the game is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, and the sound design might be the best I've ever heard in a video game. But great visuals and audio does not a game make. It's just a shame that the game design is so horrid. There is no story to speak of. Every mission follows the same of several archetypes: "Kill this", "Deliver that", "Fetch this", etc. Missions are boring and feel as though there is no consequence, especially when you're offered the exact same mission seconds after turning it in.

    The actual gameplay is mind-numbingly grindy. Most MMOs get away with this because the grind is for a greater purpose, but in Elite the only reason to grind is so that you can grind some more. It kills what very little motivation I had to play the game in the first place. The combat is pretty good, but it's not enough to carry the game through.

    There is also so little in regards to depth it's absurd. There is an entire universe of systems, yet there is hardly any difference between the systems. The missions are the same, the factions are functionally the same, it's the same system over and over with a couple of variables tweaked along the way. Ships are "customizable" in that the more money you have the better your ship is. There are no side-grades to speak of except maybe weapons where really only 2 or 3 are actually viable.

    At the end of the day, the game is just disappointing. Modern graphics and stunning audio coupled with gameplay from the 80's. I think it's naive to say game design hasn't improved in the last 30 years, and it's a shame that this game decided that it didn't have to.    … Expand
  20. Viking84
    Dec 22, 2014
    4
    Elite looks great, combat is fun, and the full scale realistic universe is brilliant. Sadly, once you have learnt how to land, how to fly and how to fight, you start seeing the games limitations and realise you are simply repeating the same simple tasks over and over and over again. Besides combat nothing requires skill, only patience, and even the bountyhunting becomes a little on theElite looks great, combat is fun, and the full scale realistic universe is brilliant. Sadly, once you have learnt how to land, how to fly and how to fight, you start seeing the games limitations and realise you are simply repeating the same simple tasks over and over and over again. Besides combat nothing requires skill, only patience, and even the bountyhunting becomes a little on the easy side once you get the hang of it.

    First 10 hours of gameplay are worth 8/10 if you can be bothered googling how to do things, after that I'm afraid you have seen what there is to see unless you have an unusually vivid imagination. 4/10 from me, hopefully more content/depth will be added to this great framework in the next 6 months or it will have been a huge waste of time.    … Expand
  21. Gutenisse
    Dec 26, 2014
    4
    It's a copy of Elite II from 1993 with superb graphics. It's fun for a few hours, but then you start wondering why you keep playing it. There's no goal, other than making more and more money.

    The combat is pretty fun, for a few hours. Trading is fun, for even less hours. The only progress is buying a bigger or better ship, bigger or better guns, but why? To make more money, so you    It's a copy of Elite II from 1993 with superb graphics. It's fun for a few hours, but then you start wondering why you keep playing it. There's no goal, other than making more and more money.

    The combat is pretty fun, for a few hours. Trading is fun, for even less hours.

    The only progress is buying a bigger or better ship, bigger or better guns, but why? To make more money, so you can buy bigger and better ships. It's fun - for a few hours.

    After a few hours, it gets boring and I'm starting to remember why I stopped playing Elite II.    … Expand
  22. rockdacazbah
    Dec 26, 2014
    4
    Do not buy this game yet!!!!!!!! No gameplay! No content! nothing just a space trucker cred grind fest. It will hopefully get better but don,t hold your breath nothing that was promised is there just a bare boned demo. £40 wasted atm imho. Oh and if you do buy it ,don't put any negative threads on the forum as they are policed by over zealous, cantankerous, supercilious snarky fanboys thatDo not buy this game yet!!!!!!!! No gameplay! No content! nothing just a space trucker cred grind fest. It will hopefully get better but don,t hold your breath nothing that was promised is there just a bare boned demo. £40 wasted atm imho. Oh and if you do buy it ,don't put any negative threads on the forum as they are policed by over zealous, cantankerous, supercilious snarky fanboys that get upset if you do.… Expand
  23. Chaotic-Entropy
    Dec 29, 2014
    4
    With deep regret, for I am a lover of the genre, I cannot bring myself to recommend this game to a wider audience than extreme fans desperate for a fix and willing to accept anything. An outsider looking in will not see a sandbox (if you can call it that), at best the game is a sandcastle beach, where you are merely a bystander. At worst, the game is a barren desert, one which you areWith deep regret, for I am a lover of the genre, I cannot bring myself to recommend this game to a wider audience than extreme fans desperate for a fix and willing to accept anything. An outsider looking in will not see a sandbox (if you can call it that), at best the game is a sandcastle beach, where you are merely a bystander. At worst, the game is a barren desert, one which you are free to play in. It is an open world, but it is an empty world and one which players can play little to no real part except with ever watchful approval of Frontier.

    If you can somehow not tire of doing the same old repetitive missions or doing the old repetitive trading, mining or "exploration" then good for you. I however expect something more from a game of revolutionary scope than to just provide me the bare minimum of paltry amusements. Not to mention that it takes everything that is annoying about online games and removes all of the benefits, leaving just the always online, unpausible and constantly running mission timers. It provides no social features, little interaction with others without a lot of effort and has a game breaking approach to player conflict which rewards rage quitting and disconnecting by removing you from these difficult situations at your leisure. Just quit and reload and you're fine.

    At the same time, it provides a basic and simplistic singleplayer approach to a space game, all the travel, all of the grind, with little reward or acknowledgement. You will hear a lot of comments about using your imagination in the forums, to which I respond that I did not pay good money to a developer for a pretty backdrop for doing nothing but imagine.

    At the moment, it's release state is a framework of a game, with glaring issues and nonsensical design choices around every turn. This is a great shame as it has a lovely amount of potential, it's galaxy is mind boggling and gorgeous, it's combat is quite entertaining, if infrequent and unrewarding. The game engine is polished and stable, but without content and any semblance of immersion and interaction then there is no point. Nothing you do matters beyond what Frontier actively allows, it is not a malleable sandbox, it is reduced to a glorified Elite museum.    … Expand
  24. elfindreams
    Dec 29, 2014
    4
    As an alpha backer, I really wanted this to succeed. Regrettably, I am left with the feeling that while parts of the game are good overall it fails to deliver an enjoyable or compelling end product.

    The problem with this title lies in its emotional and storytelling execution. Even the most basic sandbox game must give the user enough context to emotionally engage the user and make    As an alpha backer, I really wanted this to succeed. Regrettably, I am left with the feeling that while parts of the game are good overall it fails to deliver an enjoyable or compelling end product.

    The problem with this title lies in its emotional and storytelling execution. Even the most basic sandbox game must give the user enough context to emotionally engage the user and make them desire to interact with your world.

    With E:D you (optionally) go through some mechanical tutorial missions and are then placed in a station with no context at all about the world you are in. Eventually you learn that there are factions but no real reason is ever provided for why you should care that there are factions. There is no emotional pull and zero context. If you were lucky enough to grow up with Elite in the UK you might know more about the universe based on novels and other media produced about it but if this is your first foray into the Elite universe, you are given no reason to want to do more than scratch the surface and then move onto a different game.

    The bulletin board system provides missions with zero real soul and context (I was offered a mission to free slaves but given no indication at all about where in the universe slavery might be found, where in the universe slavery is common, the ramification of slavery in the universe, etc and two missions to provide very basic goods again with no real context about where to find them... it turns out I was able to purchase both sets of goods in the very station offering the missions...)

    Now to be clear I have been a gamer for over 25 years and the type of gamer that spends hundreds of hours in most games I play... I don't just play games I fully mine them for all they are worth and I was left with the question in my mind of why should I bother.

    Even if you force yourself to continue despite any emotional investment (in my case because of the rather large monetary investment) you find a game where combat is enjoyable but so sparse as to be practically non existent and where every other activity (mining, trading, exploring) is undocumented, obtuse and tedious.

    This game may be a technical marvel of procedural generation but it lacks a soul. Maybe someday someone can transplant a soul into it but until then, please do yourself a favor and give this title a miss unless you are already emotionally invested in the Elite universe.    … Expand
  25. RadiantRadmila
    Mar 4, 2015
    4
    This can be a nice game. It isn't at the moment.

    Pros: + Huge universe + Nice atmosphere + Nice music + Potential Cons: - There is no MMO component at all - Chat with friends does not work - There are many hackers who exploit a game and ruin the experience for everyone - No grouping yet, can't play with friends, can't even meet in space - Missions are boring and dull - Game    This can be a nice game. It isn't at the moment.

    Pros:
    + Huge universe
    + Nice atmosphere
    + Nice music
    + Potential

    Cons:
    - There is no MMO component at all
    - Chat with friends does not work
    - There are many hackers who exploit a game and ruin the experience for everyone
    - No grouping yet, can't play with friends, can't even meet in space
    - Missions are boring and dull
    - Game is bugged and you will often blow up for no reason and go poor again
    - Game feels empty and it's not worth the money currently. Maybe it will change with time, but so far I've paid for promises, nothing more.
    - Servers often disconnect me in the middle of the flight.    … Expand
  26. ACRIET
    Jan 10, 2015
    4
    1000 credits, a spaceship and lightyears of space ahead!

    Enjoyable for a few hour's but then it gets boring. Nice graphics, sounds and some space-fights don't make a good game, unless they throw in a serious patch to lighten things up. No storyline at all other than some small quests for some small credits. So big buck trading it is and if you think you feel like searching for the    1000 credits, a spaceship and lightyears of space ahead!

    Enjoyable for a few hour's but then it gets boring. Nice graphics, sounds and some space-fights don't make a good game, unless they throw in a serious patch to lighten things up. No storyline at all other than some small quests for some small credits. So big buck trading it is and if you think you feel like searching for the ultimate buy/selling prices; you got a match in this game of endless empty boring space... My opinion: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME UNLESS YOU'RE IN A RETIREMENT HOME!!!!    … Expand
  27. RandyFandangle
    Mar 11, 2015
    4
    EDIT: Back after a month to update review, and it's going down from a 5 to a 4. Nothing new of any use, still empty and buggy. On the plus side, an XBOne version is on the way..... wish they'd stick some content in the PC version before trying to cash in with a feeble port. The 4 is still for potential, though I'm not holding out much hope any more at this stage. Disappointing in theEDIT: Back after a month to update review, and it's going down from a 5 to a 4. Nothing new of any use, still empty and buggy. On the plus side, an XBOne version is on the way..... wish they'd stick some content in the PC version before trying to cash in with a feeble port. The 4 is still for potential, though I'm not holding out much hope any more at this stage. Disappointing in the extreme.

    (Previous review)
    Giving this a grudging FIVE for now, as I've only been playing for a couple of weeks. I'll come back later and update after another week or so.
    What I can say is that NO WAY IS THIS WORTH 10/10 AS IT STANDS RIGHT NOW!
    There are just too many bugs, and mechanisms that don't work as they should. Well, I'm praying they aren't working as they should, cuz if this is how they have designed it then God help us.
    Had some fun, but it's hard to find sometimes. Frontier are gonna have to release some damn good stuff very soon or players are gonna bail.
    Hey, the 5 is for potential. Will have to see.    … Expand
  28. KnightEnvy
    Feb 13, 2015
    4
    If you get this game you will be WOW'd right off the bat. Combat is fun and works great with a joystick. Graphics are amazing.

    And that's about it. Most of the universe is without story or at least irrelevant to it. Only 1/2 the ships are available, and if I come across more than one or two players per hour you are in luck. Disappointed I paid $60 for this. Until the price    If you get this game you will be WOW'd right off the bat. Combat is fun and works great with a joystick. Graphics are amazing.

    And that's about it. Most of the universe is without story or at least irrelevant to it. Only 1/2 the ships are available, and if I come across more than one or two players per hour you are in luck.

    Disappointed I paid $60 for this. Until the price drops to about $20-$30 I would wait for Star Citizen.    … Expand
  29. Darious
    Feb 18, 2015
    4
    The truth is somewhere between the shill tens and the zeros.

    It's a pretty game, but also pretty empty of content. Your primary options are to grind as a miner, grind as a trader, grind in combat, or explore new systems - which, after the 10th or so system, gets to feel pretty ... grindy. But make NO mistake - it is beautiful. And first two week of playing was breathtaking. But as    The truth is somewhere between the shill tens and the zeros.

    It's a pretty game, but also pretty empty of content. Your primary options are to grind as a miner, grind as a trader, grind in combat, or explore new systems - which, after the 10th or so system, gets to feel pretty ... grindy.

    But make NO mistake - it is beautiful. And first two week of playing was breathtaking. But as time went on I'd gone from trading, to exploring and out of sheer boredom bounty hunting and finally to just flat out p-king.

    After about a month I find that I just don't bother to log in anymore.

    Maybe in a year or so it might be worth the bother, but not right now.    … Expand
  30. moblin
    Feb 18, 2015
    4
    While the game looks and sounds beautiful (even more so with an Oculus Rift), it does however lack gameplay depth for long term enjoyment. There's a lot of tedious grind to get anywhere (or to get the money to get anywhere), and if you don't keep changing what you do - trading, mining, exploring, bounty hunting, the game can get boring fast.

    There's also a feeling that the game isn't    While the game looks and sounds beautiful (even more so with an Oculus Rift), it does however lack gameplay depth for long term enjoyment. There's a lot of tedious grind to get anywhere (or to get the money to get anywhere), and if you don't keep changing what you do - trading, mining, exploring, bounty hunting, the game can get boring fast.

    There's also a feeling that the game isn't really cohesive, like there isn't an overall design that underpins everything. Your presence in the universe is meant to result in some small influence on how things unfold, but everything feels like its coming into being for the moment you are there, and then disappearing after you leave, like instances. It feels very much like a typical MMO but without any story.

    There are plenty of features in the pipeline that will expand the game - the new update promises to enhance multiplayer, but treat what exists now as early access / beta, or keep an eye on the updates before taking the plunge.    … Expand
  31. cmkao
    Feb 21, 2015
    4
    I got this due to the fact that I loved Elite II back in the day. It is OK.

    Lots of grinding - but then we had that in other Elite games, right? True, but here hours worth of credits can be lost by a random encounter with a pirate - and there is no reload option. If you spend hours (and I mean hours) of your free time grinding in the hope of getting a bigger ship and being able to do    I got this due to the fact that I loved Elite II back in the day. It is OK.

    Lots of grinding - but then we had that in other Elite games, right? True, but here hours worth of credits can be lost by a random encounter with a pirate - and there is no reload option.

    If you spend hours (and I mean hours) of your free time grinding in the hope of getting a bigger ship and being able to do a few more things, but then at the end of the day you are back where you started, you have to wonder if it was a good use of your precious time    … Expand
  32. Suckit
    Mar 29, 2015
    4
    However, the game falls very short in a number of areas that were frankly disappointing and frustrating. The game is a wreck when it comes to immersion! The 3 major factions Empire, Federation, and Alliance are simply text based descriptions. Other than a text based description of these, there's no 'literary characterization' of these factions. In the movie Jaws, the chick who dies at theHowever, the game falls very short in a number of areas that were frankly disappointing and frustrating. The game is a wreck when it comes to immersion! The 3 major factions Empire, Federation, and Alliance are simply text based descriptions. Other than a text based description of these, there's no 'literary characterization' of these factions. In the movie Jaws, the chick who dies at the beginning from the Shark? We probably don't even remember their name because no literary characterization was made with the person, as opposed to the main characters in the movie. If people establish a relationship with a character or get to know them, they care more. The factions are just lame text based descriptions of one another: No cinematics, no audio interactions from the AI from these factions, no personalization that makes a Federation player feel different from an Empire and so on... As far as I'm concerned, the 3 factions are simply the same thing that are simply rebranded with a different name, a few different ships, and a few differences in trade. 400billion star systems that are just recycled with various minor factions. It's just regurgitated art. Even in games like Privateer, you could interact with the AI and message them and see a visual of them. Hell, if you accidently shoot an ally ship in combat, there's no warning message like, 'Hey watch your fire man!" Instead, your status blandly changes to 'wanted' and then every friendly ship starts firing on you. Also where's the interaction with other players?
    BORING. The missions are formulaic, bland, and create problems for a player starting out. Combat strike missions assasinating a target usually consist of 150k credits but are almost always an anaconda, so...say a player wants to take these missions, even in an upgraded viper it's pretty much a death mission. Missions like kill bounty hunters, or strike traders, often have consequences of becoming wanted in the system and having all the system security after you, so there's no point to accepting these missions even though they appear, and sometimes they are offered by the controling system faction which makes no sense when they'll make you a wanted target. But, many of these missions consist of searching around the system going to random "unidenifiable signal source" points...randomly searching around for these to find either your strike target, your black box, your rebel plans, insert purplenerpleberry A. Advance in rank: Okay, you take a mission sponsored by the Empire which you do essentially for free to take 4 illegal cargo items be it slaves, or combat stabilizers, etc...doesn't really matter just insert item A, B, or C here. So, the next step is finding a station where you can buy this crap, and you have to go through the galaxy map and try to sort through gov't types as well as system economy to find that item. Combat stabilizers is in High Tech econ system, and then you need to find an anarchy, independent, or dictatorship gov't in order to have a chance at buying the illegal item. So you set out for the item with a limited timeframe and this system you want for the item could be 50ly away after spending 25minutes jumping from system to system and playing the Elite Dangerous waiting game, you get to the station and find that it's not sold at that station, doesn't have a commodity market, or they're out of the item. Furthermore, the 3d map grid system becomes annoying to use because of the scale of the systems and Z axis to try to find systems around you isn't always user intuitive, you could spend 15minutes simply looking around the nearby stars zooming and out moving around on the x, y, and z axis to find what you're looking for. But anyway, players complete this stuff looking for 'more' in the game only to find just rinse and repeat. So, essentially there's no motivation to continue playing the game because once you complete a mission you get simply a change in text showing you're now allied or friendly with Purplenurple A.
    There isn't enough variety in the types of weapons with pros and cons. Mainly consists of either beam, pulse, or burst phrases in whatever will fit onto your ships hardpoint that do damage against the shields, and then multicannons to do more damage against armor. We need more of a variety of combat visuals. The use of gimbal weapons in the game that 'autotrack' as opposed to non gimbal is pointless from a balance perspective. It is pretty much always advisable to go gimbal because you will hit 100% of the time and the damage from a non-gimbal isn't significant enough to justify use. Another oddity is that although there are classes of modules with grades, it appears that no matter what ship you buy, you can never fully equip it due to power restrictions...
    This game has an ' Indie feel' but is asking a triple-A price point at 60$...but (feels beta).    … Expand
  33. 2chill
    Apr 3, 2015
    4
    Frontier Developments have spread themselves too thinly with just the PC release. With impending Mac and console versions on the horizon I can see the already sketchy support for the PC version becoming diluted further.

    The game has improved since release, with there being almost weekly updates or patches. However, with each update the game's FPS takes a dramatic hit - especially if you    Frontier Developments have spread themselves too thinly with just the PC release. With impending Mac and console versions on the horizon I can see the already sketchy support for the PC version becoming diluted further.

    The game has improved since release, with there being almost weekly updates or patches. However, with each update the game's FPS takes a dramatic hit - especially if you are playing on a lower spec system.

    Stutter, stutter, stutter.... = unplayable.

    I really wanted this game to be the one I played for the next few years (like many of us did with the original back in the 80's). This is not going to be so, as after a couple of months I am already playing it less and less. Even with the inclusion of new content, Frontier Developments are far from filling the massive void they have created.    … Expand
  34. MadMaxx
    Apr 3, 2015
    4
    Beautiful game, horrible monotony. Awesome game to play for a week or two. Most users don't last much beyond that. I've played since December 2014, but I must admit I have to urge myself to log in, or even find a reason to log in and play. I've also brought many friends to the game who did not last more than one week.

    It seems even the old Star Wars Galaxies and older games had many    Beautiful game, horrible monotony. Awesome game to play for a week or two. Most users don't last much beyond that. I've played since December 2014, but I must admit I have to urge myself to log in, or even find a reason to log in and play. I've also brought many friends to the game who did not last more than one week.

    It seems even the old Star Wars Galaxies and older games had many more fun things to do. In this game, it's Trading, and Combat. Missions are broken to a large extent, and even if they worked fine, there is nothing to progress to other than a title. Content additions are very slow to be put into the game, and it ends up creating a continual revolving door of players.

    Things that were considered feature additions (multiplayer) should have been added back in beta, and the mission system should never have been released in this state. Even something as simple as adding more ships seems to take twice as long as any other 3D space sim I've ever played.

    In general, it's a fun game to play for a couple weeks between games, but that's about it.    … Expand
  35. joejean
    May 25, 2015
    4
    After buying the game, I was in heaven, I like to learn on my own, so I took off into space and started learning what I could. The mechanics of the game seemed great, it seemed they would work great for an MMO, supplying small space stations with trading revenues would make the station expand in size and the faction in control of it would start rising in the picking order of that system.After buying the game, I was in heaven, I like to learn on my own, so I took off into space and started learning what I could. The mechanics of the game seemed great, it seemed they would work great for an MMO, supplying small space stations with trading revenues would make the station expand in size and the faction in control of it would start rising in the picking order of that system. You would create guilds and nurture specific parts of space to grow them and be allowed to make missions for your guild members, creating a 3 tier economy between the NPCs, the game Powers (politicians) and the individuals (independent players).

    You could form groups of flying wings to secure or interdict certain parts of space, the interaction possibilities seemed endless, this add everything a great MMO should have. I was so hyped...

    So I played at steam release about 160 hours in 12 days, learning organically I would say, trying to avoid going on youtube for easy answers and so forth. But then, the wall hit me, I started looking at videos released by the game makers, most of witch we're 2 years old, promising the moon, the sun, the whole universe in fact (pun intended)... Well, I started seeing a trend, the maker (don't wanna name him, I feel dirty just thinking about him) was a smooth talker, savvy man, saying everything right, everything anyone wants to ear, then, at the end of each reply he would give he'd be like: "If this sounds good to you, then please, please go on kickstarter and back us up."

    This trend kept going and going, he then produced super high quality videos of his entire staff, each of them making a passionate plea about how great the future of the game is and how ships would be multicrewed and you could board them and then fight in first person mode to then take over the ownership of that vessel, those poor employees seemingly pouring their heart out, being so emotive and seemingly so priviledged to be part of such a great game endeavour.

    Then I read a blog written by said game maker, talking about how the new gaming industry is basically the new far west, comparing his business basically to a cowboy living in one of the hardest, dirtiest, lawless era of mankind, a time we're people killed for food, destroyed an entire native civilization for greed and so forth.

    At that point I understood what this guy's game was, he's a con artist, a smooth talker.

    He talked people into giving him over 3 million dollars, went corporate, ISOed on the stock market and is now ready to reap his rewards. From all the features he "talked" about, about only 10% made it in to release, which that's a wrong appellation, this is an ALPHA product, sold at AAA price.

    Worst thing I found tho, is that the MMO tag was applied WRONGLY on the steam client, fooling me into believing this game would have human interactions in it, when in fact, 10,000 players online could all be in SOLO individual instances, making this the biggest SINGLE PLAYER game ever made...

    In over 400 hours of play now, I came across about 12 people total in their so called OPEN PLAY...

    Add to that the total lack of directional content, you are suppose to read walls of text as if we are in 1984 still, even then most of the text content is fluff and mostly pointless, as a single player you have no influence on anything.

    Top this off with a fanboi community bent on attacking anyone making the slightest negative comment on the game, a fanboi community actually given FREE CONTENT and EXCLUSIVE features to edit their own community goals, allowing people who bother to go to the forums a huge edge on regular fools like me who bought the game in good faith, thinking this was a serious game maker, not a con artist led project to spruce up the corporation stock...

    This game will most likely see one more free patch (powerplay) and then it'll be 1 or 2 half done expansions for money, close the books, start the next title to release on steam next year, close the servers for E:D and ride the fame train with nice fancy videos and more smoke and mirror effects to reap the maximum out of the unexpecting steam crowd.

    All in all, there is fun to be had in the game if you like being a loner, never meet other players and basically be a space trucker... Go watch some videos on youtube, look at the guy talk, wouldn't he sell you a used car? See the glimmer in his eyes? That's the glimmer of greed...    … Expand
  36. cryon1cang3l
    Jun 11, 2015
    4
    Its a grind heavy game, even after patch 1.3.02 where PowerPlay was introduced.
    The multiplayer is limited, the game has a pesky peer2peer system (so the server will provide only background information to the client and all interaction happens between clients and it IS bad for an MMO).
    The game has a hard limit of 32 player per instance, but after 10-12 people its almost impossible to    Its a grind heavy game, even after patch 1.3.02 where PowerPlay was introduced.
    The multiplayer is limited, the game has a pesky peer2peer system (so the server will provide only background information to the client and all interaction happens between clients and it IS bad for an MMO).
    The game has a hard limit of 32 player per instance, but after 10-12 people its almost impossible to play in the instance.
    PvP is very limited and most people play this game solo.
    Balancing is poor. PvP works based on how many shield cells you can fit in your ship, not on how good you can fly.
    This game looks nice and will entertain you in the first hours, but the "lategame" is boring, there is nothing that you can do outside of grinding for even more credits and reputation/power.    … Expand
  37. Psyanide
    Aug 24, 2016
    4
    Despite having 400 billion systems Elite falls flat on it's face before even leaving the first. What might at first appear to be a fun space sim, with lush graphics and great sound effects Elite's gameplay soon plummets into a repetitive grind fest with little depth and plenty of built in time sinks designed by he developer to hold back your progress as much as possible.

    Despite what    Despite having 400 billion systems Elite falls flat on it's face before even leaving the first. What might at first appear to be a fun space sim, with lush graphics and great sound effects Elite's gameplay soon plummets into a repetitive grind fest with little depth and plenty of built in time sinks designed by he developer to hold back your progress as much as possible.

    Despite what some people will try to tell you, Elite's flight model is not Newtonian, all ships fly like Jets with a faster pitch than yaw even with flight assist off, a capped speed limit (instead of acceleration limited by mass) and a flawed ''flight assist off'' mode that despite adding a more Newtonian feel still seems to want to add friction where there shouldn't be.... at all in fact.

    Missions are repetitive even after the overhaul that was supposed to add more variation but in fact all it did was allow several of these repetitive missions to be chained together resulting in forcing you to play the repetitiveness out for longer than before.
    Exploration is just as repetitive and boring as trading with even less of a payout, which seems like an insult considering it takes longer than trading.
    Smuggling is a rinse and repeat process every time just involving rushing the docking bay while in silent running mode, there is no variation to these missions not the smuggling mechanic what so ever.

    Trade is about what you would expect, take X from A to B and then preferably Y from B to C or back to A. The markets don't change much and it's not like you can manufacture anything yourself to influence the market either, you're literally just stuck going from A to B.

    ''Populated'' space does not seem very populated at all, you cannot interact with NPC ships aside from shooting them, you cannot trade with other players, you cannot form corporations with other players in fact the whole social aspect of this online game is incredibly lacking.

    Now onto the overall development of Elite since it's early release from Beta back in 2014. First off when Elite was released you couldn't form a group (or a Wing in this case) until 2 MONTHS after release with the Wings update (imagine Wow, the Battlefield series or any other online online game that did that, it's shoddy development), then despite people being annoyed about the lack of depth in the game and the over abundance of repetitive gameplay Frontier released the Powerplay update that adds a PURE grindfest to fill a progress bar for your preferred political party to show your support only for that progress to be removed every week, so keeping your progression is impossible and it actively punishes you for taking a break.
    then, with the Horizons update Frontier gave us barren, lifeless planets to land on, with no variation of things to find. See that planet over there with lush greenery, a bountiful ocean and city lights visible from space? Well you can't land on those kind of planets, no you're only allowed on the barren boring ones because Frontiers team are too lazy to give you anything else other than barren planets.
    Then there is the 2.1 update, the most recent update as of writing this, which (now remember enough people have quite due to the amount of grinding in the game already) added a super grindy random number generation (or RNG for short) crafting system, meaning that you spend 5+ hours grinding resources to upgrade a module or weapon on your ship only to waste all that time because the game decided to give you a rubbish crafting outcome so now you have to go back and grind all those resources again just to try your luck yet again, and this can be something that you repeat 10 times before you even get a favourable crafting outcome let alone the outcome you were aiming for.

    With the 2016 Gamescom over we have been given details of the next 2.2 update which will add deplorable [that was actually a typo, I meant deployable, but I'm sure like most gameplay features in Elite they will be deplorable too) combat drones, hire able NPC crew (who, unlike you, will die perminently if your ship is destroyed wasting all the time and effort you put into levelling and training them up), passenger transporting (exactly the same as transporting cargo, nothing new here, although it will give a use to the Dolphin ship which has been in the game for a year without any use).

    All in all Elite is a rather mediocre space sim, both gameplay wise and development wise, who's only true claim to fame is that it has the biggest play area and the most fanatical fanboy community that can't accept any criticism.    … Expand
  38. gdog
    Dec 11, 2018
    4
    The game looks and sounds great, but after visiting a few systems and doing a few generic missions you realize you've seen it all before. What's the point of simulating an entire galaxy if it is effectively empty of stuff to do. Like a cheerleader this is beautiful but shallow.
  39. satinlight
    Nov 11, 2021
    4
    In 2021 Elite Dangerous is for you if:

    1) you have no job, no hobby and no life, willing to travel to almost every mission above 10 real-time min; 2) you like to grind, grind and more grind; 3) you can ignore annoying bugs, annoying rules, repetitive and boring gameplay; 4) you are ready to spend more time googling things than actually playing, because this game is THE MOST    In 2021 Elite Dangerous is for you if:

    1) you have no job, no hobby and no life, willing to travel to almost every mission above 10 real-time min;
    2) you like to grind, grind and more grind;
    3) you can ignore annoying bugs, annoying rules, repetitive and boring gameplay;
    4) you are ready to spend more time googling things than actually playing, because this game is THE MOST unintuitive and unnecessarily complicated one I've ever played with no useful tutorial whatsoever;
    5) you are ok with no goal in the game;
    6) you like meditative games;
    7) you like realistic cosmos and starships.

    Advice: just go play No Man's Sky instead.    … Expand
  40. CoreDave
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    Sadly this game is a shadow of its potential. Harsh punishments, very grindy gameplay, enormous time commitment requirements, lack of meaningful impact on the galaxy, broken promises and most importantly being released far FAR to soon. Needed another 6 months to a year in development, offline mode, modding support and many of the missing or cut features to have been implemented to make itSadly this game is a shadow of its potential. Harsh punishments, very grindy gameplay, enormous time commitment requirements, lack of meaningful impact on the galaxy, broken promises and most importantly being released far FAR to soon. Needed another 6 months to a year in development, offline mode, modding support and many of the missing or cut features to have been implemented to make it a game worth playing. Once the initial shine wears off its going to start shedding players like a crazy.… Expand
  41. Glidej
    Dec 18, 2014
    3
    Single player canceled in late stages and will not be implemented. Game was released waaaay to early as it is not even close to being done. Wait a year or buy it for $20 or less.
  42. Blackcompany
    May 7, 2017
    3
    Amazing sound. Quality graphical presentation. A large universe. These are the pros of Elite: Dangerous. And they are the only ones.

    On the other hand, flying is amazing difficult. Too many minute facets of fine control to balance at once. Docking is a horrendous pain, as its all in real time with tiny station entrances and a game that makes no effort to help you find your assigned    Amazing sound. Quality graphical presentation. A large universe. These are the pros of Elite: Dangerous. And they are the only ones.

    On the other hand, flying is amazing difficult. Too many minute facets of fine control to balance at once. Docking is a horrendous pain, as its all in real time with tiny station entrances and a game that makes no effort to help you find your assigned dock.

    Activities are the same tired ones that appear in every space sim: trading, pirating, delivery jobs and bounty hunting.

    It must have been easy to refine and polish the existing space sim genre when making Elite. I say this because, judging by the design direction, the first thing they decided against in the beginning was any semblance of actual innovation at all.

    Not recommended.    … Expand
  43. Ayreos
    Dec 2, 2015
    3
    A game in which the sounds and the atmosphere of a space science fiction fantasy are lovingly crafted. Unfortunately, that's about the only positive thing i can say about the game. Annoying mechanics, strange design choices, a complete dearth of content(made, if possible, worse by the first "expansion" currently in beta, which simply broadened an already shallow, repetitive experience withA game in which the sounds and the atmosphere of a space science fiction fantasy are lovingly crafted. Unfortunately, that's about the only positive thing i can say about the game. Annoying mechanics, strange design choices, a complete dearth of content(made, if possible, worse by the first "expansion" currently in beta, which simply broadened an already shallow, repetitive experience with yet more shallow content. There are the makings of a fun experience below all the frustration, but it was impossible for me to get at it, and not for the lack of trying. Worst of all: don't hope to be able to play multiplayer comfortably with your friends! Just don't!… Expand
  44. 2fast4u34521
    Nov 13, 2015
    3
    Elite:Boring.

    After 2 weeks of playing it leaves me only bored. You cant earn money as fast as you should and everything looks the same. Its so sleepy...X3 is a much better game, even though it is old. Just think about the traveling in elite: this flying and flying and there is nothing to do. In X3 you can do many thinks just while traveling. Here its only waiting. OMFG I **** hate this    Elite:Boring.

    After 2 weeks of playing it leaves me only bored. You cant earn money as fast as you should and everything looks the same. Its so sleepy...X3 is a much better game, even though it is old. Just think about the traveling in elite: this flying and flying and there is nothing to do. In X3 you can do many thinks just while traveling. Here its only waiting. OMFG I **** hate this **** And I played it 2 weeks.    … Expand
  45. Mike101506
    Dec 19, 2014
    3
    I gave this a three because frankly, the game explains little to nothing in terms of how to play as a new player. I was very excited to play this but have yet figured out how to really do anything. Besides the training which was self explanatory I mindlessly rove around until I eventually run out of fuel. It looks great, the gameplay is incredibly slow and arduous. Until they come up withI gave this a three because frankly, the game explains little to nothing in terms of how to play as a new player. I was very excited to play this but have yet figured out how to really do anything. Besides the training which was self explanatory I mindlessly rove around until I eventually run out of fuel. It looks great, the gameplay is incredibly slow and arduous. Until they come up with more training missions to provide "how-to's" like accessing the bulletin boards/when dropping out of LTL how you scan and get to objectives, map plotting etc. it is not worth it. Also, if you purchase and want to return it...tough luck. No refund policy.… Expand
  46. Scorcher24
    Apr 14, 2017
    3
    The flying model is good, however, that is it. After you have done all the basic missions and activities, it is just the same things over and over until you lose interest. There is a story, however, that is only in form of blog entries and those can be read without actually owning the game. There is not a single non-repeatable mission in this game. Those missions do also not offer any sortThe flying model is good, however, that is it. After you have done all the basic missions and activities, it is just the same things over and over until you lose interest. There is a story, however, that is only in form of blog entries and those can be read without actually owning the game. There is not a single non-repeatable mission in this game. Those missions do also not offer any sort of meaning to the game world. Not even if you do faction wars. The borders move a bit, that is it. But nothing actually happens. The player cannot own anything but a ship. There is also no production, so mining is useless as a money maker since Bounty Hunting is the best earner in the game. The only purpose is when you have Engineers, which require you to mine thousands of tons of ore to unlock them. The sad part is, without Engineers (which are behind an extra 25€ paywall), you are going to have a bad time fighting, since the whole world is balanced towards the Season Pass.

    All in all, it is fun for a few hours and then it becomes rather stale. I'd rather play Eve or X3.    … Expand
  47. crnppscls
    Dec 20, 2014
    3
    i thought it was great when i first started playing it. I'm just glad i held off writing something about it for a couple of days.

    It is pretty and the sound design/effects are great. On top of that the feel of the ships encapsulates the sense of empathy that you feel as a pilot. They actually feel that they have mass and you do care about your hull. Ship handling feels solid. It    i thought it was great when i first started playing it. I'm just glad i held off writing something about it for a couple of days.

    It is pretty and the sound design/effects are great.
    On top of that the feel of the ships encapsulates the sense of empathy that you feel as a pilot. They actually feel that they have mass and you do care about your hull. Ship handling feels solid. It really, really had me for the first few hours.

    Gameplay is king however and this is where the title falls, not so much down but pretty much flat on it's face.

    It's about as dynamic as a siesta. Once when coming out of supercruise, i was switching between the game and candy crush and i saw another ship controlled by a player. Then he disappeared, i still don't know if it was real or a mirage brought on by my brain's insistency to go into standby. Cargo scooping for the nth time made me cry.
    The game is solely geared for you to accrew new ships, everything is done for money. There is a big grind to level. It wouldn't be a problem, if it wasn't so boring

    The always online thing is mind boggling. If there was any sort of multiplayer element in the game i would understand but there is none that i can see. Perhaps i'm missing something fundamental. Speaking of fundaments, you would think this sort of decision would be taken long before the game is released. It stinks frankly.

    I try to use adjectives that others don't for fear of plagiarism but if i was to sum up the game it would be 'the shell looks promising but not nearly enough GAME'

    A beige simulator of infinite groundhog day possibilities    … Expand
  48. Tick
    Jun 12, 2015
    3
    I'll start off with the 10/10 rating I give everything and work backwards to my score of a 4.

    The Interface is not mouse driven in menus. You have to use keyboard controls which is not intuitive seeing how you used the mouse to navigate the menus before the game launched. The interface has to be instinctual and natural to the majority of PC users. This means the Mouse. The interface is    I'll start off with the 10/10 rating I give everything and work backwards to my score of a 4.

    The Interface is not mouse driven in menus. You have to use keyboard controls which is not intuitive seeing how you used the mouse to navigate the menus before the game launched. The interface has to be instinctual and natural to the majority of PC users. This means the Mouse. The interface is a Vital component as it should be background and thoughtless. Just a smooth interraction to get through so you can play the game. It isn't... It's awkward. You cannot use your mouse in the various menus. When you are in the system map and click on a station you do not get options like "set destination" or anything. You have to use your keyboard as if you were playing an old 286 computer computer game. The galaxy map you can click on things and a pop-up menu does come up but it is so sensitive that trying to mouse over to the options closes it more often than successfully choosing an option. Interface -3

    Graphics are pretty good. They are by no means Amazing. I have settings on Ultra and run it on a 60hz 4k monitor. They never made me go "WOW" they were just pleasing. Score: +2

    the ships are kind blah. Just wedges that look kind of dated. Put up against the environmental graphics the ships look drab... Score: +0

    Controls: They are complicated. This is a steep learning curve. If you have just a mouse and keyboard you have to fool around with the controls for quite some time to get anything resembling intuitive controls to fly with. Score:-1

    Manual everything: Docking is a pain in the butt. Apparently after you play the game for a while you can buy a computer to automatically dock... but if you have played the game long enough you may just like manual docking and not want the computer to do it for you... I don't know why the auto-dock computer isn't a starting item and you can save ship resources by taking it out later on... It's easy to miss the spot you have to land on, you get warnings by the station to MOVE NOW OR YOU WILL BE SHOT, you accidentally press a button to deploy hard-points and your guns deploy. You were just fined. Score: -1

    Navigation: It's ok, you have to adjust the mouse sensitivity and dead-zones to improve this, and if you don't know what these are because you're new to games like this.. You're SOL. Some planets don't even show up on the system map because they are tethered to another planet.. Nothing explains this, you have to figure it out on your own. The ships seem sluggish, and you have to fool around with Pitch, Yaw and roll to get something you like, again if you are unfamiliar with what this means, you're again, SOL. Score -1

    Tutorials: Not very helpful at all. This game assumes you are experienced before you play. It assumes you're an existing backer. It assumes you've played the original game. It seems that without a HOTAS or Joystick set-up the game puts you at an initial disadvantage. Buying a new HID before you experience the game is asking a lot. New Player experience Score -2

    I tried going back to this game, and I couldn't... It's just so boring. I had to drop my score by another point. -1

    I really want space games on the PC to make a come-back. I didn't back the game, and I wanted to try it once it was released. I bought the game, and my experience has not been that positive at all. I showed the game to some friends. they were not that interested in picking it up after seeing how much micro-management is required at the start of the game. I can see micro-management of all the details giving efficiencies and advantages once you become more familiar with the game, but it seems that you have to deal with all this right out of the box and can earn money and buy stuff later to reduce the micromanagement..... Strange..... The community generally says "we want a complex game. So get out of here" I'm sure I'd want a more complex game as well, once I have sunk my teeth into it... but not right out of the box...

    I can't in good conscience recommend this game to anyone other than the initial backers.    … Expand
  49. Squicker
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    I was really looking forward to this game, being a massive fan of the original game and having in fact reached Elite status 3 times on 3 separate platforms. However this game leaves me cold as it feels like a rushed xmas cash grab.

    Let me start with the good: It's beautiful and very relaxing. One definitely feels the vast emptiness of space in this game, and on the Oculus Rift it does    I was really looking forward to this game, being a massive fan of the original game and having in fact reached Elite status 3 times on 3 separate platforms. However this game leaves me cold as it feels like a rushed xmas cash grab.

    Let me start with the good: It's beautiful and very relaxing. One definitely feels the vast emptiness of space in this game, and on the Oculus Rift it does look superb.

    However you will be forever taking off that Oculus Rift because the UI is so old-hat. There are no journals or trading tools in the game, I have already given up on the Rift and moved to monitor so I can play, because the simple things we take for granted in a modern game are not there. It's as if the designers are stubbornly remaining in 1984 and they don't care how cumbersome it makes their game.

    Next, not only is space empty but grouping with friends is near impossible and when you do, the next work performance is a horrid glitchy mess. I have 80Mb/s fibre and this game runs like I am on a 14.4Kb dial-up modem. Again, 1984 is looming. Ships glitch in and out, space stations appear from nowhere, collision detection is horrible. I don't think the network code is finished, not by a long measure. I would like to play this game offline to eliminate these problems but because Frontier did a very neat bait and switch one month ago, I do not have this option. This is probably the single worst technical aspect of the game.

    Challenge: there is none. The game is incredibly simplistic and is just rinse and repeat gameplay. I am trading and there's a handful of commodities to trade and within my 8 hours today I have already made a small fortune. It's just too easy to pick a short haul route and rinse it. Easy but dull.

    Content: There is none. This a framework for a game. Perhaps with some content it will even be a reasonable game (apart from above problems) but right now you've seen and done it all in a day.

    Presentation: Really old-fashioned. The menus are clunky things straight out of 84 but with higher res fonts, there's no consistency on using controller vs mouse in various menus. The Oculus is coded for but you have to take it off. Seriously out-moded thinking here with no join up to other game elements. Really feels cheap and rushed.

    Flight model: Dumbed down and in my view overly simplistic. Very arcade-like and clearly this game is designed to port to consoles easily, in fact this could be a PC version of a console game, it's that simple. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but just be aware if you are looking for a deep space-sim like experience here, you will not get it. I think the game is obviously aimed more at a console crowd than old fans of Elite and that's where the money is. So a sound business decision maybe, but it hurts PC players.

    Overall this is a sad day for Elite fans who looked forward to a re-envisioning of their old classic game, there is no vision behind this release. It's just a series of clunky mini-games held together by the theme of space travel. For the amount of time and money spent on Elite Dangerous this really is a surprisingly weak release and I can only think that Frontier ran out of money to release the game in a clearly unfinished state. My advice is to wait a few months and pick this up in the sales when perhaps frontier have written some new content and crucially, fixed online multiplayer, because that is game breaking at this point in time.    … Expand
  50. TURJAN
    Aug 17, 2023
    3
    Second job simulator: The Game. There are 5 things you can do in this game.
    >You can be a space truck driver. Buy cheap in one station and sell it in another. Economy is very detailed but it becomes boring very quickly because every star system, space station and planet looks exactly the same.
    >You can be a space taxi driver. The same as above but people in place of copper. It becomes    Second job simulator: The Game. There are 5 things you can do in this game.
    >You can be a space truck driver. Buy cheap in one station and sell it in another. Economy is very detailed but it becomes boring very quickly because every star system, space station and planet looks exactly the same.
    >You can be a space taxi driver. The same as above but people in place of copper. It becomes boring very quickly because every star system, space station and planet looks exactly the same.
    >You can be a miner. Instead of buying minerals in stations just mine it yourself and sell it! It becomes boring very quickly because every star system, space station and planet looks exactly the same.
    >You can go exploring the space! Yeah, well... look above.
    >You can shoot some pirates, hunt aliens and bounty hunt. That one is actually pretty fun with a couple of friends, but its not profitable so you have to do one of the things from the list above to earn money. Also you need to upgrade your ship and that is whole another universe of grind.
    There are some story events but they are all aimed at end-game players so i never actually seen any of that.    … Expand
  51. bokor
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    It's a sandbox all right. Do what you want: trade, explore, mine, bounty hunt - it's all the same. You go into super cruise (like warp speed) with a barely hidden load screen and fly from instance to instance where you'll run into no players. I've heard the argument that there's only a grind if you make it a grind - but those people are fooling themselves. There are HUGE money gapsIt's a sandbox all right. Do what you want: trade, explore, mine, bounty hunt - it's all the same. You go into super cruise (like warp speed) with a barely hidden load screen and fly from instance to instance where you'll run into no players. I've heard the argument that there's only a grind if you make it a grind - but those people are fooling themselves. There are HUGE money gaps in-between ships so you'll find yourself flying in small ships for hours and hours until you want to fling yourself off of a cliff.

    It's not all bad. The flight mechanics are GREAT - ships feel weighty and satisfying to fly. Open-world PVP is always great (just stay near popular systems to find players to fight.) The docking mini-game is fun, but tedious after hundreds of times.

    A vast ocean that's inches deep, Elite Dangerous isn't the game for everyone. I'm addicted, but I just space truck. I feel like Frontier rushed this game out to help pay for development. That's not a bad thing, but don't expect a full game just yet.

    I just can't recommend this game, despite the hundreds of hours I've already put into it.    … Expand
  52. Kaltern
    Dec 22, 2014
    3
    I'm not even playing it any more.

    I LOVED the original Elite, and I lived in Frontier, but this... this is just boring. Hell I get 100% more enjoyment out of Euro Truck than this, and that literally is going from one place to another. I think one of the main issues is the idea that players should have to manually do EVERYTHING. I mean, sure docking is fine, it's old school and you    I'm not even playing it any more.

    I LOVED the original Elite, and I lived in Frontier, but this... this is just boring. Hell I get 100% more enjoyment out of Euro Truck than this, and that literally is going from one place to another.

    I think one of the main issues is the idea that players should have to manually do EVERYTHING. I mean, sure docking is fine, it's old school and you have the option of a docking computer.

    But no autopilot when going from one station to another? Why? It's not as if you can click 'A' and then go make a coffee, cos you could be interdicted at any moment, but it sure as hell beats having to make sure you leave SuperCruise at precisely the right moment. It's a manual mechanic that wasn't even going to be IN the final game (it was added after alpha design discussions), so I don't know what was going to be in it's place.

    Combat is clunky and slow, the deliberate crippling of yaw movement sounded like a good idea at first, but in practice, it's a forced mechanic that just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense in space. Even with it's many many issues, SC's combat is so much better.

    Even the landing procedure is just odd... Ok, I get the reasoning behind there being no keybind for 'Request Docking Permission' - it will make macro-trading a lot more difficult - but it's not hard to overcome, and in the end is just an awkward way of yet again making manual control more prominent.

    Mining is pointless.

    This game is literally a timesink of the worst kind. If there was a bit more automation for travelling, then it might not be quite so bad. The laughable idea that your ship's navigation computer has absolutely no data on any other system except your starting one, and a couple of others (which I don't understand how or why), unless you purchase them from the map screen (not from Cartography, like you USED to be able to - another convoluted design change), makes no sense to me.

    And WHY you get money for 'discovering' stars and planets is beyond me, considering that data for this already exists to buy! Naturally, if you visit a truly unexplored system (which mathematically, you will, if you travel far enough), you SHOULD get paid oodles of credits, and would make exploring worthwhile - but exploring a system WHEN THERE ARE PLAYER SHIPS IN THE SAME AREA is utterly stupid.

    Elite is like an egg without a yolk, a sandwich without filling, beer without alcohol.

    And it's boring as hell.    … Expand
  53. Maiquer
    Jan 25, 2015
    3
    I loved the i-War series, and almost every other space game out there. I was a backer for Elite Dangerous, and had very high expectations. This is what I got: Flat, boring, repetitive gameplay. No content. They sold this as a MMO and the multiplayer mechanics are a joke. David Braben tried to make the same game as in 1.984, only with better graphics. The only positive aspect is the MilkyI loved the i-War series, and almost every other space game out there. I was a backer for Elite Dangerous, and had very high expectations. This is what I got: Flat, boring, repetitive gameplay. No content. They sold this as a MMO and the multiplayer mechanics are a joke. David Braben tried to make the same game as in 1.984, only with better graphics. The only positive aspect is the Milky Way simulation. Everything else is crap. I don't recommend this game to anyone. Biggest disappointment of 2014.… Expand
  54. chutoy
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    A missed opportunity to build upon a great title from the past. In the mid 1980's everyone I knew who owned a BBC computer owned a copy of elite, it was a revolutionary title and I wasted weeks during the school holidays lost in space tangling with vipers and Thargoids.

    Frontier Developments have decided to use the same "Elite" name but not offer the same type of game-play, as with so    A missed opportunity to build upon a great title from the past. In the mid 1980's everyone I knew who owned a BBC computer owned a copy of elite, it was a revolutionary title and I wasted weeks during the school holidays lost in space tangling with vipers and Thargoids.

    Frontier Developments have decided to use the same "Elite" name but not offer the same type of game-play, as with so many other companies they appear to have been lured by the short term questionable rewards of on-line only, while encouraging players to spend money on micro transactions and expansions.

    It seems decisions are being made to maximise profits and that leaves questions open as to the long term future of a game that promises features, such as off-line play, only to cut them later with no warning.

    The original game was played on a BBC micro computer, this new version makes the BBC news website due to features being binned. This is the skeleton of an old great game, so many cut or lacking features and I feel sad that I was ever excited to see it being developed again.    … Expand
  55. Polar-eX
    Dec 25, 2014
    3
    To be very short about this game: its a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. Everything(!!) look exactly(!!) the same, multiplied by 400 billion star systems. Have fun!
  56. Matnik
    Dec 20, 2014
    3
    Short review - This game is unfinished, and suffers greatly as a result. I'm also going to have to go by my memory of a pre-release version, as I'm one of many people who've been unable to play since launch due to the sheer number of bugs.

    I was a huge fan of Elite 2 back in the day, but I'm not going to just fervently defend this game based on misty-eyed nostalgia. At best, this is a    Short review - This game is unfinished, and suffers greatly as a result. I'm also going to have to go by my memory of a pre-release version, as I'm one of many people who've been unable to play since launch due to the sheer number of bugs.

    I was a huge fan of Elite 2 back in the day, but I'm not going to just fervently defend this game based on misty-eyed nostalgia. At best, this is a tech demo. The graphics are great, the soundtrack beautiful. Space is modelled well, in that it is vast - and almost entirely empty.

    The launch trailer is nothing like the experience of the game. If anything, I'd say this is probably the most accurate portrayal of the likely future of life in space. Obtain ship. Obtain cargo contracts. Ship cargo from system to system. There is combat, yes, but it's more shoe-horned in than feeling an integral part of the game.

    And right now, that's it folks. You go to a starport, either buy a contract or a cargo mission (or if you spend the credits, find out the best trade routes) and go. Earn money. Once you've earned enough, go and buy a bigger ship. Continue until you have the biggest ship you can get and earn credits into all eternity.

    The ship designs are great - but you'll rarely see your own ship in game, as the whole game takes place from inside the cockpit. This is by design, but ultimately makes you feel like you're watching a TV programme about space, whilst fumbling around the menu system. The menus work very well, which is great as this is where you'll spend most of your time.

    But the bugs. Oh, the bugs. I can't even log in. The forums are full of angry customers and no sign of the support team. It reflects very poorly on the company and the future of this title.

    It could be great, but it feels like a race with the likes of Star Citizen and No Man's Sky, and Elite Dangerous is off the line early and half-dressed, with no warmup.    … Expand
  57. korsobar
    Jan 2, 2015
    3
    Like a beautiful hollow cake. It looks really good, but, just when you sink your teeth into it, everything collapses.

    Graphics, sound, ship handling are all good. The content is slim to non-existent, and many of the core features of gameplay are just a skeleton waiting for skin. For example: exploration sounds like it might be a really great option for those who are less interested    Like a beautiful hollow cake. It looks really good, but, just when you sink your teeth into it, everything collapses.

    Graphics, sound, ship handling are all good. The content is slim to non-existent, and many of the core features of gameplay are just a skeleton waiting for skin. For example: exploration sounds like it might be a really great option for those who are less interested in combat. Except you quickly find that exploration income is tiny, you get exactly zero feedback about which systems make more money, many systems and areas will disconnect you, the process of exploration is to jump into a system and hold a button or stare at a planet for several seconds, etc.

    Mining is even less involved: shoot lasers at a rock then crawl around actually scooping them. The only income that scales with your ship is trade, which involves simply comparing spreadsheets in identical looking stations until you find two items that allow a profit. Then you travel back and forth selling those. Hundreds of times. There is no reason to move once you have found a profitable route. At all.

    Even if you decide to grind out credits in the hope of better content later, you have to cope with the always online even for solo play problem. To be honest, I thought this was no problem at all for much of the beta and gamma phases. Then the servers went nutso yesterday, messing up peoples' accounts, balances, ships, modules, cargo and everything else. There are no support staff available and no one has talked about the issue on their official forums yet despite 24 hours elapsing. Hint to Frontier: if you want to run an always online mmo, someone has to be available to answer the red phone on holidays, too.

    On top of that, the game has started crashing to desktop and occasionally causing BSOD crashes for me as well. I have a top of the line gaming PC that I built myself. I have never had a BSOD from any other game. Support tickets go unanswered, everyone is out.

    If you complain about ANY issue on the official forums, be prepared to be met with a legion of defenders who will promptly inform you that -they- have no problems, you must be doing something wrong. If you prove their was a problem, they will defend the problem as a necessary feature of the game. If you point out how flawed it is, they will tell you that the game is not for you, go away.

    Elite: Dangerous proves that kickstarter and early access does nothing to solve the problem of games being pushed out the door too soon.

    Come back in a year or two and this game might be a real gem.    … Expand
  58. Bennrama
    Nov 9, 2015
    3
    Why anyone with any intelligence plays this game instead of say.... X3 is beyond me. The only possible reason would be for the multiplayer, but let's face it, elite: tedious has God awful multiplayer. It is reasonably engaging for the first 20 hours perhaps, which would be fine for a single player game that packed a lot of content into 20 hours and left you feeling like you've accomplishedWhy anyone with any intelligence plays this game instead of say.... X3 is beyond me. The only possible reason would be for the multiplayer, but let's face it, elite: tedious has God awful multiplayer. It is reasonably engaging for the first 20 hours perhaps, which would be fine for a single player game that packed a lot of content into 20 hours and left you feeling like you've accomplished something in that time (like the completion of a decent storyline, for example). Elite left me feeling like I'd wasted a bunch of hours learning the controls and quirks of a game that is in NO WAY ENJOYABLE..... The only way to conceivably enjoy this monster grind of pretty-looking repetition simulator, would be to play with friends. But Elite seems determined to make that as frustrating as possible.… Expand
  59. Joote
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    Loved the first Elite, but don't like this one at all. The game is confusing and everything that should be simple is made as clunky as possible. You don't feel as if your playing a game, more like having a nightmare. Interdiction's are worse than a nightmare, I had 8 in one trade run and ended up getting destroyed.
    The game feels like a alpha were most of the functions are still bug    Loved the first Elite, but don't like this one at all. The game is confusing and everything that should be simple is made as clunky as possible. You don't feel as if your playing a game, more like having a nightmare. Interdiction's are worse than a nightmare, I had 8 in one trade run and ended up getting destroyed.
    The game feels like a alpha were most of the functions are still bug ridden, which is funny as the first beta I played was better than this release.
    First Elite was a great game, Elite dangerous is a horrible frustrating, badly designed game with some really stupid ideas implemented. It does look pretty when it's not jerking though. Bye bye Elite, a opportunity wasted.    … Expand
  60. Vaestmannaeyjar
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    As it now stands, Elite Dangerous is a game shell. Flying is nice, graphics are very good. Everything else is borked. Trading is buggd to the teeth, mining is just a minigame where you pewpew at asteroids and have to manually fetch hundreds of asteroid bits. Exploration is just pushing a button and flybys on planets.
    Moreso, Frontier Developments have shown during beta that they aren't    As it now stands, Elite Dangerous is a game shell. Flying is nice, graphics are very good. Everything else is borked. Trading is buggd to the teeth, mining is just a minigame where you pewpew at asteroids and have to manually fetch hundreds of asteroid bits. Exploration is just pushing a button and flybys on planets.
    Moreso, Frontier Developments have shown during beta that they aren't fast to asnwer issues. Game will probably be a blast. In 3 years. Be back then.    … Expand
  61. mcuser
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    Great graphics and sound, boring gameplay. Once you've done the few things there are to do a few times you realise how shallow and empty it is. Released a year too early.
  62. CptUndies
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    tl;dr - A beautiful game which is not easy to learn, nor fun to play.

    I purchased Elite Dangerous at the beta stage and I was overwhelmingly disappointed. Having been a fan of the space sim genre since Wing Commander in the 90s, I had high hopes for this game. The game was obviously created to be best played on a $500+ throttle/joystick/pedals setup, not mouse/keyboard or even just a    tl;dr - A beautiful game which is not easy to learn, nor fun to play.

    I purchased Elite Dangerous at the beta stage and I was overwhelmingly disappointed. Having been a fan of the space sim genre since Wing Commander in the 90s, I had high hopes for this game. The game was obviously created to be best played on a $500+ throttle/joystick/pedals setup, not mouse/keyboard or even just a joystick. The flight model is based on aeroplanes and not what you'd actually expect a spaceship be.

    In addition, the game felt sterile and boring, and has a huge lack of built in help to learn. For me, removal of their promised ability to play offline even in single player was the final nail in its coffin.    … Expand
  63. Gunhed
    Dec 16, 2014
    3
    I can't recommend it to my friends in the current state.
    As a beta player there are too many things amiss.
    Trading system borked. High supply system/station don't have stuff and demanding system/stations are in high supply. That doesn't change if you purchase trading information. Everything in this game is so tidies and not rewarding. I don't want to have a game that feels like a job    I can't recommend it to my friends in the current state.
    As a beta player there are too many things amiss.
    Trading system borked. High supply system/station don't have stuff and demanding system/stations are in high supply. That doesn't change if you purchase trading information.
    Everything in this game is so tidies and not rewarding. I don't want to have a game that feels like a job without payment.    … Expand
  64. StockportJambo
    May 14, 2015
    3
    Backed this game at planet naming level (£750), as well as sunk another £200+ into it since then on merchandise, skins, and so on. I named my planet & space station after my late Dad. I was heavily involved in the Design Discussion Forum (DDF) all the way through. Needless to say, I wanted this game to be good.

    Unfortunately, once the initial "wow" factor of the huge galaxy wears off,    Backed this game at planet naming level (£750), as well as sunk another £200+ into it since then on merchandise, skins, and so on. I named my planet & space station after my late Dad. I was heavily involved in the Design Discussion Forum (DDF) all the way through. Needless to say, I wanted this game to be good.

    Unfortunately, once the initial "wow" factor of the huge galaxy wears off, you discover there's very little actual game there - and, worse, even less opportunity for you to create your *own* game. The systems are very similar, the stations are even more similar, the NPCs serve no purpose whatsoever, and the ill-advised & badly implemented "multiplayer" doesn't make up for the overriding feeling that the game is largely devoid of purpose. Everything feels "fake".

    It looks pretty in my Oculus Rift (bought for the game during alpha). It's a useful tech demo in that respect. The menu systems are terrible. Having to take your eyes off the action to fiddle with menu options to do some basic task is stupid. I'm not surprised that they're releasing a console version, as the "game that is designed for the PC from the ground up" (as promised during the Kickstarter) clearly wasn't.

    There is no pause button. Even if you only play solo (as I usually did) if you accept a (boring, fetch and carry) mission, you better finish it in that play session because the timers will count down on it even if you're not playing. Then you will lose rep. It would make sense if there was an actual effect on the system / faction if they didn't receive their 6t of Tea in time... but there isn't.

    It's incredibly grindy. There's nothing to do except grind for more cash to... buy a bigger ship... just so you can grind faster to... what? That doesn't count as "progression".

    There is a 1.3 update coming - codenamed "Power Play". With luck, that will address *some* of the deficiencies of this game for *some* people. No word on any further updates though... so I wouldn't hold your breath.

    However, the overriding feeling I have is one of profound disappointment & regret. I wish I hadn't spent so much money on it. I wish I hadn't named a space station as a memorial to my Dad as the game will now only exist for as long as Frontier continue to pay for the servers, thanks to their disgraceful last-minute bait'n'switch on offline mode. I am happy that some people are getting enjoyment from it, and it is clearly aimed at a demographic, but I am now acutely aware that this demographic does not include me... a huge fan of the originals and a high level Kickstarter backer.    … Expand
  65. cgavin1
    Dec 19, 2014
    3
    The problem is that you have all these horrifically shallow and borderline insulting your intelligence (requiring no thought, planning, offering no challenge etc) activities that make you credits. But there's nothing to spend them on except a bigger cargo hold to make more credits.

    That sort of monotonous grind is bloody terrible and we've all had more than enough of grind MMOS. Let    The problem is that you have all these horrifically shallow and borderline insulting your intelligence (requiring no thought, planning, offering no challenge etc) activities that make you credits. But there's nothing to spend them on except a bigger cargo hold to make more credits.

    That sort of monotonous grind is bloody terrible and we've all had more than enough of grind MMOS. Let alone faux ones! There's nothing to build. Nothing to own or conquer. Nothing to create and - critically - nobody to share the journey with. It's like being trapped in an entry level job on a zero hour contract. Few people can enjoy that sensation of enforced compartmentalisation and poverty of imagination in terms of game design.

    I find this particularly sad as one of the things Braben said was that he never wanted to play Spreadsheets In Space; which presumably was a jibe at EVE Online. And yet EVE offers seat of the pants adrenalin pumping PvP backed by real consequence, compelling socio-economic warfare that scales really well, politics, emergence etc.

    It isn't everyone's cup of tea and is dated, clunky and bordering on impenetrable to new players, but, to literally not try to bring any of those kernels of tried-and-tested over a decade compelling gameplay features in to a 'space sandbox' seems daft to me! For all their bluster and vision: a bunch of soulless statistics is all you amount to in this game. In terms of modern gaming it's an evolutionary dead end (p2p aka lobby multiplayer is dead as a dodo) that doesn't offer a satisfying, rewarding or structured experience. It will likely never be able to circumvent that gaping flaw in design sadly, because its an anachronistic rehash of a very old format, that is baffling by design and fundamentally anti-social; lacking in emergent gameplay, patently shallow and repetitive and therefore .. dull. No matter how much content they add, it will always be crippled by this and the rather awful multiplayer implementation.

    I have trouble understanding how nobody could have pointed this out at the brainstorming phase? It feels to me like they wanted to make a single player game with some multiplayer elements but ended up trying to make an always on MMO without any of the requisite MMO components. A truly unfortunate decision. The name of the game doesn't really serve to suggest anything but the digital equivalent of an ironic-beard either! Elite: Dangerous. Odd choice since the game as it stands contains literally no peril, risk, consequences or challenge and has the software equivalent of a hardwired gastric band.

    If they had just made a single player game in the style of the older releases, packed with things to do, places to see, an Elder Scrolls in Space if you will, I'd have bought it and not been too concerned about the multiplayer aspect being weak. But trying to make a multiplayer game without any actual credible multiplayer, including the social or competitive building blocks required to make any multiplayer sandbox game 'work', was just dumb bordering on insane. It also perhaps explains, in my mind, why Braben has never done a sequel to the Elite series before now - arguably nobody would back him/it without a clearer commercial vision. I seem to remember a quote from Ian Bell along those lines: Braben arguably does not understand 'fun' and how to package/juxtapose that with a commercially viable but artistically integral product.

    Moral? If you are going to make an MMO make a proper client/server MMO. If you are going to make a single player game, make a single player game. If you want to add on some limited multiplayer functionality then do so. Don't try to make an MMO with limited multiplayer functionality and no content. It won't end well.

    My advice to anyone is to hold off right now. Wait a year and maybe pick it up when it is finished. And even then be prepared to be disappointed with the heavily instanced region locked p2p multiplayer and the inevitable lack of compelling content. I'd also caution people not to invest or buy in to anything Frontier have offered as game design proposals or pledges as they have already back pedaled on much of what was originally proposed and seem to be distracted by external commercial and financial pressures.

    Overall I think this is a massive disappointment and very weak offering that fails to offer the basic ingredients most players of sandbox games expect: challenge, development, aspiration, mutability, depth and decent multiplayer. Frontier just seem to have been way too naive in their presumption that a tiny dev team who have never done this kind of game before and a tiny budget could produce the kind of AAA game they thought they could. Sadly Elite Dangerous falls way, way short ..    … Expand
  66. colescole
    Dec 18, 2014
    3
    This game is a shiny turd. It looks good but there is very little to do. Multiplayer doesn't exist. If you enjoy endlessly staring at different colored spheres then buy this game. If your hoping to have fun save your money and buy any thing else.
  67. ikarii
    Dec 18, 2014
    3
    What a weird, frustratingly designed game.

    The decision to pivot to always online clearly hurt it - it has less players than BF4 in an instance. Practically no features for teaming up with your mates. Only one single server location worldwide. Peer to peer networking. So, basically, an "MMO" without the massive multiplayer, but forced to be online, presumably as half assed DRM.    What a weird, frustratingly designed game.

    The decision to pivot to always online clearly hurt it - it has less players than BF4 in an instance. Practically no features for teaming up with your mates. Only one single server location worldwide. Peer to peer networking. So, basically, an "MMO" without the massive multiplayer, but forced to be online, presumably as half assed DRM.

    There's so little to do and so little content - so few different stations and ships, only a few different weapons (and even less if you exclude simple reskins). There seem to be about a total of ~30 something models in the whole game, including asteroids, all the space stations, and all the ships. There's a good variety of suns and planets, to be sure, but they're basically differently textured spheres.

    As it stands the game sits very awkwardly between something like Eve, and something like Freelancer, and is unlikely to please fans of either. The grind for cash is as basic as any MMO but with none of the game systems that make a good MMO - especially in terms of teaming up - but even basic things like being able to work out arbitrage between systems, navigation, communicating with other players, etc, are practically nonexistent. And in terms of single player space game fans, there's nothing much for them either - the grand space war they promised consists of "conflict zones" consisting of mindless AI battles in space, to the achievement of nothing, no NPCs that aren't simple disposable space ships (which might as well be named 01001110), and no missions of any consequence for yourself beyond reputation and cash.

    Essentially there's nothing to recommend about it - other than the sound design, which as others have said, is genuinely fantastic. Other than as a workout for headphones - this is a really expensive game, which in many ways is much much less complex and involved than games like Freelancer, Freespace and Eve, which cost practically nothing. It's about the level of 8-bit Elite, which is below the level even of most f2p mobile phone games these days.

    It's hard to see this as much other than a big flubbed opportunity and a mad dash into chasing MMO cash, but without the budget for anything MMO fans have come to expect.    … Expand
  68. Pureforce
    Dec 19, 2014
    3
    The game looks good and that's pretty much it.
    Game area is so big you will rarely see another person and even when yo do so it will most likely disconnect or instance you. It is not possible to play with friends since instancing throws you into different instance after each jump. The game disconnects a lot. There is broken chat and no other social side to interact with people.
    Apart    The game looks good and that's pretty much it.
    Game area is so big you will rarely see another person and even when yo do so it will most likely disconnect or instance you. It is not possible to play with friends since instancing throws you into different instance after each jump. The game disconnects a lot. There is broken chat and no other social side to interact with people.
    Apart from online multiplayer issues, game gets stale fast. After trade you quickly get tired of their archaic navigation system, you literally have to path plan every jump every time.

    Would not recommend.    … Expand
  69. dualist
    Dec 20, 2014
    3
    Pretty game, boring end-game, lots of broken promises.

    Here there is a list of things "that will be added during Beta" https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19639 Well, is now released and many of them are not in the game. I backed this game from the beginning. I wanted it to be the next game I'll spend half of my life playing, but it has turn out that, like many    Pretty game, boring end-game, lots of broken promises.

    Here there is a list of things "that will be added during Beta" https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19639 Well, is now released and many of them are not in the game.

    I backed this game from the beginning. I wanted it to be the next game I'll spend half of my life playing, but it has turn out that, like many Kickstarter and Early Access games, it was a bunch of lies.    … Expand
  70. Ryyx
    Jan 10, 2015
    3
    Elite: Dangerous is in every way the game that I remember... and that is not as positive a thing to say as it might be for some others. Elite was groundbreaking in it's day, featuring some of the most memorable sandbox elements that have shaped nearly every space game to come after it.

    Almost every game in the genre features some combination of exploration, bounty hunting, piracy,    Elite: Dangerous is in every way the game that I remember... and that is not as positive a thing to say as it might be for some others. Elite was groundbreaking in it's day, featuring some of the most memorable sandbox elements that have shaped nearly every space game to come after it.

    Almost every game in the genre features some combination of exploration, bounty hunting, piracy, trading and mining.

    Sadly, this game FAILS to deliver and innovate in a number of very serious ways.

    What is really irksome, is all the elements are here, trading, fighting, exploring, mining. You can do it all. But Frontier FAILS in almost every area of good game design in frustrating and often face-palming ways.

    The Sandbox is absolutely VAST, 400 billion star systems with countless locations to visit. Never in your lifetime could you hope to visit a fraction of them. Ambitious is an understatement for the scope of this game.

    Yet somehow, despite the sandbox being the biggest EVER, the depth of that sand is less than an inch deep... Just when you think you have scratched the surface in a chosen area of game play, you quickly realize that you have seen everything the game has to offer in that area.

    Try any profession and you will discover that within an hour or two, you will have done everything that profession has to offer, and the only incentive to keep playing it is the carrot on a stick mechanic of upgrading your ship to do it a little bit better till you can buy a new ship... but the gameplay doesn't improve or get more interesting. Fight one dogfight against an NPC and you have fought them all. Explore one star system and you have explored them all, with the occasional exception of rare spatial anomalies like black holes... but again, see it once, you have seen them all. Trading, mining... all the same, everywhere you go. Only the names and positions on the map change.

    To counteract this sameness, Frontier wisely tried to inject randomized events and situations to take part in, everywhere you fly are little undiscoevered signal sources and similar random events waiting to be explored. However, once again, there is a lack of depth and variation... Drop out of warp on one, and it's pretty much only going to be one of 4 things. A trader/caravan, a police ship, a wanted pirate, a random assortment of loot and wrecks.

    Nothing about these events changes, nor are they really interesting... IT's not like you drop in on a fight between traders and pirates, or get a distress signal asking you for power converters or anything that might add depth... It's just another RESOURCE Node for you to exploit, or be exploited by if your ship isn't up to snuff.

    Then there are the graphics - What is at first a great looking game, quickly becomes bland and boring as you realize there is no variation. All gas giants look the same, all asteroids look the same, all stations look the same, the minor variations you find in the graphics only keep it interesting for so long. In addition, you never really get a good look at your ship, making all those pain jobs and decals you can buy with real money pointless, as they only show up on certain fitting screens, and for other players who may or may not even notice them as you will only be visible on their screen for fleeting moments as a small blob of pixels unless you are right up next to them.

    The one saving grace I felt early on was that this was like guild wars, in that it was a free MMO and I eagerly tried to talk friends into trying it. I know that being able to explore and do things as part of a team will be more fun and profitable. But I quickly learned that despite being touted as some kind of MMO, it's really nothing like one... You can't really group up, not in any meaningful way, even with group play you find you can't share bounties, trade money or loot, you don't even end up in the same instances all the time.

    I am aware that his is coming as a free expansion in the coming months... but I'm afraid that will be too little too late.

    Probably the biggest cue that this game is flawed is that after playing it for a week, all I want to do is resubscribe to EVE online. A game that might lack the flight sim characteristics, but does everything Elite does BETTER except maybe exploration and scale (And EVE is huge, and there are things to explore).

    the best thing to come out of it was I discovered Voice Attack and ASTRA (an user made add on) that lets me control the game with my voice.

    Bottom line, this game was great in the 80s, and if this exact game came out in 2001-2005, I think it would have been a hit. But today, in 2015, this game is terrible dated, and IMHO really only appeals to the games old cult following.

    If you are one of those people who still load up the classic elite and think it's fun, you will LOVE elite: Dangerous.

    But if you are like the rest of us who moved on and live in 2015... This game is terribly outdated and stale.    … Expand
  71. beegjaymes
    Jan 15, 2015
    3
    I was an early backer so I've played E:D since the first public release. Elite was the game which defined gaming in my childhood. Unfortunately this is just a complete disappointment.

    It's dull.

    Very dull.

    And tedious.

    Very tedious.

    And buggy.

    It makes me sad to say it but: Don't buy it. Just don't.
  72. Grey_lead
    Jan 23, 2015
    3
    I was a HUGE fan of Elite when I played it in 1984 on the B&W Commodore, then very excited on the color Amiga version. Open world, amazing new idea at the time. Well, open world has been done, so that's not new, but I was really excited for this new version and Beta backed it. God, I made a mistake. It's truly beautiful, and I can't believe they put that much work into building ourI was a HUGE fan of Elite when I played it in 1984 on the B&W Commodore, then very excited on the color Amiga version. Open world, amazing new idea at the time. Well, open world has been done, so that's not new, but I was really excited for this new version and Beta backed it. God, I made a mistake. It's truly beautiful, and I can't believe they put that much work into building our galaxy, but I can't see it. I'm an adult now, I work, so I can play maybe 2-3 hours a week. As such, I just can't grind away flying back and forth trying to upgrade this little POS Sidewinder. How do I have a universe of possibility with a ship that can't haul, can't fight, can't jump? At least the original Elite gave you a Cobra which could do all of that relatively well from the start. This is just eye-gouging grinding because it's so flat. The stations, planets, and ships look phenomenal but one you land, you can't even get out of the seat. All trade is through a clunky hologram interface and it's not even hyperlinked well enough to click this and it takes you to nav page that style. No journal, so I have to write things down on paper, like where to find black markets or certain items, and the fetch quests are so bland... just text find this or take that, but without a journal I can't even cross reference where the last place I saw X commodity was (ulness I wrote it down physically). And trans-galactic flight planning? I can't type a location and say "plot route" unless it's within my fuel distance because they can't add "refuel here" waypoints, yet my simple $70 flight planning software I use for flying real planes can do it just fine. I have a hyper-space capable ship, but the computer can't add refuel waypoints? WTF? And how is it that we can jump ships FTL, but can't get market updates or at least general "this system trades these things" data without going there and seeing it after we land? Too much realism in one area, not enough in the other. I want to talk to an NPC!!!… Expand
  73. Mark1973
    Feb 5, 2015
    3
    No content yet. There are a few ships. The combat is dull and doing anything mildly interesting takes more money than it gives. To earn cash for the better features you have to grind, but they've just nerfed that as well.
  74. scabberwocky
    Feb 16, 2015
    3
    Joined up to leave a review... Have been playing since release late last year, and have had some fun - espescially at the beginning. Well not right at the beginning, because I had no idea what was going on, and the tutorial such as they are, are terrible.

    Pros: graphics are good, and the ship designs I like for the most part. The sound was good until the latest bug fixing patch which    Joined up to leave a review... Have been playing since release late last year, and have had some fun - espescially at the beginning. Well not right at the beginning, because I had no idea what was going on, and the tutorial such as they are, are terrible.

    Pros: graphics are good, and the ship designs I like for the most part. The sound was good until the latest bug fixing patch which seems to have broken it. Combat is a bit hit and miss, and often ends up drawn out. The scale of the thing is impressive on paper, but it's just pixels: you could triple the number of stars for no extra right?

    Cons: Let's not beat about the bush - it's a grind for the most part. Trading is quite boring fairly quickly, all commodities/cargo are just text labels. Mining is appalling. The persistent background simulation is pretty fake. There are loads of bugs, and as many are introduced with the patches as are fixed. In open play you find antisocial types ganking you for no good reason. Lastly, it is now boring. There's little incentive for me to log on.

    Conclusion: Good initially, becomes grindy and repetitive fairly rapidly. Limited long term appeal.    … Expand
  75. UKastrogeek
    Feb 18, 2015
    3
    Not really too happy with the game as it stands, as it isn't living up to the hype and the BS reviews.

    Multiplayer is supposed to be patched in the next release, and we'll be able to form in groups of 4. Yes, that's right. FOUR. Don't get me started on the griefers or the boredom factor with so little interesting content in the game. Rapidly losing confidence in this, and I had    Not really too happy with the game as it stands, as it isn't living up to the hype and the BS reviews.

    Multiplayer is supposed to be patched in the next release, and we'll be able to form in groups of 4. Yes, that's right. FOUR.

    Don't get me started on the griefers or the boredom factor with so little interesting content in the game.

    Rapidly losing confidence in this, and I had such high hopes. Fingers crossed they can fix things quickly enough to stop everyone leaving, otherwise it's just wasted money again.    … Expand
  76. alenkacz
    Feb 23, 2015
    3
    I will not bore you with another lengthy review, as there are many. I bought into Elite in July of 2014 for $150, this will include all future updates and DLC. I'm very sorry to report this was a mistake on my part.
    I so wanted it to be a fun and exciting game but it is neither.
    I played the original Elite and probably every 4x, space combat sim since so I'm not new to the genre. The    I will not bore you with another lengthy review, as there are many. I bought into Elite in July of 2014 for $150, this will include all future updates and DLC. I'm very sorry to report this was a mistake on my part.
    I so wanted it to be a fun and exciting game but it is neither.
    I played the original Elite and probably every 4x, space combat sim since so I'm not new to the genre. The environment is beautiful there is no denying that, however its only skin deep. Once you've seen the five or six different types of space station the awe factor fades and your left with a universe that feels dead and nothing to do but look at the scenery. Running cargo missions to obtain a bigger ship to run more missions ect does get old. The combat is about the same with no real point to it. Your stuck in the cockpit with no interaction with anything else in the game, your not ever allowed to see the outside of your ship unless you go to Elites website to see the wonderful screen shots you can not take. As far as multiplayer goes, the decision to include 400,000,000,000 stars made the odds of ever seeing a non NPC player 1 in 8,000,000. assuming 50k players on a single server. Its basically the same game from the 80's with a bit of polish. Consumer's expect far more today than they did back then, a 1985 Cadillac may have been wonderful in its day but in 2015 even with shiny new paint its still woefully outdated.    … Expand
  77. abwatrboy
    Feb 23, 2015
    3
    First off I'd like to say all of the fanboys giving this game a perfect 10 are delusional. Also giving it a 0 is not right either.

    My review, I'm came into this game as a new comer to ED I've always been a space sim fan. I've played many including X3, eve online, and others. Where this game wins, Graphics are impressive to say the least. The sounds and sites are really    First off I'd like to say all of the fanboys giving this game a perfect 10 are delusional. Also giving it a 0 is not right either.

    My review,
    I'm came into this game as a new comer to ED I've always been a space sim fan. I've played many including X3, eve online, and others.

    Where this game wins,

    Graphics are impressive to say the least. The sounds and sites are really impressive. Combat is very exciting,and very well done. The flight mechanics are awawesome. You can fly as a highly maneuverable jet (not very realistic but very fun) or by turing the flight assistance off you can also have the experience of what an actual spaceship would fly like in space. So in the simple mechanics of the game. I would in fact score that as a perfect 10 of 10. Because they have absolutely nailed it. Home run.

    Where it fails,

    This is an very long list. I'll try to keep it as short as possible. As many others have gone into great detail. This game is very hard to figure out. I can almost guarantee the first few hrs of gameplay will be very frustrating. From having to figure out controls to googling simply how to actually get paid from a bounty.
    Saying that there is lots to do is almost a double edged sword. Yes you can spend countless hrs doing the same repetition that doesn't mean there's lots to do. Intact there's only 2 things to do shoot something or fly from point to point.

    Once you've figured out how the game works you will no doubt have some fun. Because there is a lot of excitement. There is some fun value here. I don't want to totally trash it. But it just doesn't have any content. Once the honeymoon phase ends. You start looking for something to do! You want to immerse yourself in the community. There really isn't one. The comms are spotty at best. There's no chat. There's no grouping (1.2 patch seems to have this is mind. But that's at least a month off still) you want to find somtionse interesting mission content. There isn't any. Missions range from kill 6 pirates, or something else. Pick up this bring it here. All of this "stuff" is supposedly going to change the influence of of the controlling factions. You're suppose to be able to actually influence economies. Cause economic booms, civil wars, etc and that would truly make for some interesting content. If it worked. You will still find posts on the forums today wondering if it even works. There's a huge group of player from launch that have had this single goal. With no luck. Their efforts have been in vain. The system is completely broken.

    There is no mission structure (or the previously a mentioned lack of influence) so you will be left grinding out trade missions/routes. Bounties and the only kill mission being. Kill anaconda. The only reason you do this isfor in game currency . So you can buy better ships and modules. Just so you can go back out and grind for more credits.

    The 400 billion systems is really a joke. Once you've travelled around a little you're going to realize. It's pretty much 4 or 5 systems over and over again. Exploration is extremely boring. Once you've seen one gas giant you've seen them all. And it's not even interesting. Point your ship at planet for 30 seconds scan complete. Take in for (very small amounts) of credits. There's nothing to do there's nothing to find. Except maybe take a screen shot for your wallpaper. Except you'll have to use a third party program for that. And it will have the ship hub in the sho. Because there isn't even an in game picture camera.

    There is no dount in my mind in 6months to a year this game will be awesome. But Frontier has a lot of work to do. There really isn't a game there. Not by today's standards.

    The price point of $60 is an insult. There isn't enough content there to justify $20 let alone $60. This game is little more than a very impressive technical demo.

    I do not recommend picking this game up at all. Check back on reviews in 6 months. Maybe it'll be on sale or have made drastic content upgrades.

    If they could at least fix the reputation/influence system that would be a great start.    … Expand
  78. beastlyfido
    Mar 23, 2015
    3
    If you are a die-hard Frontier or Elite fan(like me!) this might be worth the $60 just for the thrill of seeing Braben and team back in action. I'm a kickstarter, I was excited. I am sure this will be an excellent game in months but for now it is extremely (extremely) dull and buggy. For a new player or for a gift it has nowhere near the polish or game play you expect from a 2014If you are a die-hard Frontier or Elite fan(like me!) this might be worth the $60 just for the thrill of seeing Braben and team back in action. I'm a kickstarter, I was excited. I am sure this will be an excellent game in months but for now it is extremely (extremely) dull and buggy. For a new player or for a gift it has nowhere near the polish or game play you expect from a 2014 title.

    There are about 6 storyboards: trade, launch, supercruise, jump, dock, and combat. As of 1.2 several of these are still buggy and when they work they are still dull. Some would add exploration but all the systems are essentially the same "feel" even if generated procedurally, so that gets old quick.

    There are only a few station models, ship models, and mission types. It is a small game aspiring to be giant one.

    You are expected to grind like crazy to get anywhere. I expected that but this takes it to the extreme. I have been playing Federation missions since release and am still neutral. (6 weeks?) Many of the procedurally generated systems are so silly that you can spend 15 minutes in supercruise just to get from a jump point to a gas station.

    On the plus side the visuals are great when they are there, and the sound design is fantastic. You'll unfortunately spend most of your time watching low-frame rate star field simulations while trading and watching Netflix in another window for weeks in order to be able to properly do combat or exploration.

    Combat is trivial once you've fought a few times. Most non-NPC players simply hit the alt-f4 combo to get out of it because they are trying to trade. The combat rewards also don't scale well. Dying costs about $180k in a small fighter (you start with $1000), and beating a ship you shouldn't be able to beat gives you about $20k.

    I do think they have the potential for another classic here but for now it's mostly potential. The reliability of the system in America is also below par for a retail game.

    p.s. if you liked cruising around planets in Frontier, you can't interact with the planet surfaces at all...yet.    … Expand
  79. Premier84
    Apr 8, 2015
    3
    I originally wanted to give this game a 0 but it risks my review of not being credible. It cringes me that I actually have to give this game a 3.

    Here are the good parts of the game. It is beautiful! The details of the planets and the stations are incredible. It's huge. Being able to produce the game that has 1 to 1 scale is quite commendable. But really that's it. Might as well    I originally wanted to give this game a 0 but it risks my review of not being credible. It cringes me that I actually have to give this game a 3.

    Here are the good parts of the game. It is beautiful! The details of the planets and the stations are incredible. It's huge. Being able to produce the game that has 1 to 1 scale is quite commendable. But really that's it.

    Might as well market this game as a space simulator, where you fly endlessly, having absolutely nothing to do. You have 4 professions that you can pursue but it is completely lacks any depth. Bounty hunting is you looking at some Bulletin Board, clicking on the same mission over and over again to catch extremely weak pirates that fly towards you like mindless fish in a tiny stream that flows towards you. You do this over and over again, without any variety whatsoever, and the fans and Frontier calls this bounty hunting.

    Mining is completely garbage. I have never seen a single person enjoying mining, not even the hardcore fans. Basically, you shoot some laser at a rock, and you literally have to pick up all the tiny pieces by positioning yourself with the rock. It is completely ridiculous. It is 3301 and you'd think they would have invented a better to pick it up.

    Exploring is also completely bogus. All you do is fly into an instance (please note that all the instances look exactly the same, maybe it has different names and the number of planets and stars, but that's about it) click on a scanner button, and then you are done. That's "exploring". Fans hail this as something amazing but you have to understand majority of the hardcore fans are fans of the original Elite (in 1984) and they are now in their 40s and they have no idea what good games are suppose to be like.

    Trading is the another repetitive profession without any specific value. You go into a station buy some commodity and then sell at another. It is sad because this is the only way you can make money so everyone is pretty forced into it.

    And by now, you must be thinking that the game must have other features to it. But no, that's it. This is literally all you can do. There's no end-game and your actions don't really affect the background simulation and the background simulation don't affect you. So there's really no difference between playing this as an offline game or online.

    Also, how dare Frontier market this game as MMO? There is a limit to its instances (64 players). In reality, I have not seen more than 5 to 8 people in an instance.

    How dare Frontier market this game as a sandbox? It is definitely not a sandbox game. Your actions have no effect on the game, and the game has no effect on your play.

    They recently introduced a four player "co-op" missions but that's as much as MMO you are going to get.

    Finally, what's worse is the Frontier Development team. They do NOT listen to any of the suggestions made by players. Instead of spending their money on improving the game, they are spending it on expanding it to Xbox and Mac. They are literally taking money away from players with false advertisement, with words like MMO and Sandbox.

    If you mention this at all on the forums, you will get banned and will delete your posts. It is incredible. Stay away from this game and please do not support such companies.    … Expand
  80. Braddyapples
    May 12, 2015
    3
    The game is seriously boring. There are a lot of features in the game, but none of them are fleshed out very well. Only buy this game if you're looking for a huge time sink with pretty space visuals. That's about it.
  81. medwyn
    Jul 17, 2015
    3
    After 30 years this return of the classic title looks like a bunch of question marks for me.
    Its values in the extreme - beautiful and immersive graphics and sounds, great piloting features and ship management on one side and a chaotic mess on the other.
    Obviously this game fell into the same trap of the later years' games development trend: it was released very early without making it    After 30 years this return of the classic title looks like a bunch of question marks for me.
    Its values in the extreme - beautiful and immersive graphics and sounds, great piloting features and ship management on one side and a chaotic mess on the other.
    Obviously this game fell into the same trap of the later years' games development trend: it was released very early without making it satisfactory quality. This alienates me completely as I feel tricked for the price rather than satisfied.
    The more hours one puts into the ED universe flying around, the more glitches to be found. Depending on how the player is willing to counterbalance these problmes with "roleplaying" workarounds and other mind techniques, they are there embedded into the very texture of the game.
    After nearly 3 years of development it's still not clear for me what ED wants to be - it's more clear what it doesn't. The P2P system the whole engine is built on renders the possibilites of making a really consistent universe pretty limited (or I can say impossible). So the 400 billion stars represented as the full Milky Way galaxy becomes pretty 2-dimensional, it's like a repeated pattern of small bubbles reacing out to 30 light years distance.
    The release was rushed and it ended up in a seriously unfinished state where instead of game elements we got empty, buggy and non-functional placeholders. Persistency is non-existent, the economy background is static and insignificant, the NPCs are spawning and disappearing just for the player in the very instance, they are not going anywhere and can be farmed like chickens.

    We are now 8 months after this very questionable release and the backbone of the game is still missing but Frontier has been very busy cashing in more money for this quarterly-baked game-skeleton by porting it over to Mac and lately X-Box. The so awaited 1.3 is a meaningless grindfest, the incoming CQC is another firm step towards an unorganic arcade shooter gameplay.

    The community forums are toxic when it comes to crisicism, those rare and lengthy discussions with constructivism are fading away soon without any feedback from the devs.

    I gave 3/10 as a modified review now, big disappointment. I would like to see a great game where there are much more dimensions than just flying from point A to point B and increase a bank balance to buy another ship to do the same. Without proper and consequent interaction with each other and with the universe it's really flat no matter how beautiful it is. ED is an exhibition of stars but not a game.    … Expand
  82. BearStrangler
    May 23, 2015
    3
    The game is pure junk. Half hashed project, very unfriendly to users. Feels and looks bad. Repetitive. At a lower price point maybe, get this on sale.
  83. leopoldfrank
    Jul 9, 2015
    3
    This is possibly the most annoyed I've ever been with a game I've paid money for - the unrealised potential, the fact it feels like an early access game but was sold as a finished product, the annoying fanboys who patronisingly tell you "you don't get it".

    The ship mechanics are excellent and have the basis for a lot of fun however, the game really offers very little. You can do 4    This is possibly the most annoyed I've ever been with a game I've paid money for - the unrealised potential, the fact it feels like an early access game but was sold as a finished product, the annoying fanboys who patronisingly tell you "you don't get it".

    The ship mechanics are excellent and have the basis for a lot of fun however, the game really offers very little. You can do 4 things, all of which are heavily underdeveloped - mine (blast some space rock for a pitiful amount of coin), trade (fly unusable items from point A to point B), explore (fly around millions of identical looking systems) or fight stuff (grind procedural mobs or do bounty mission to kill some noob npc in nearby system). That pretty much raps up Elite's gameplay. All 4 things get tedious very quickly. Interaction with other players is minimal and connection with the gameworld is very thin.

    The game feels like an early access game but Frontier evidently think it's a finished game which makes me feel a little angry and like I've been ripped off. Something that annoys me even more than this is the game's fanboy community of people happy with the game how it is who constantly say annoying things like "the game doesn't hold you hand", "make your own story", "use your imagination". These all too easily pleased people who could happily while away the hours playing with their Star Wars figures, using their *imagination* are probably largely responsible for Frontier saying "that'll do" rather than giving us a more complete game with more depth.

    I've been generous and given it a 3 purely for the large potential and superb shell the game has. Just a pity it has no content, depth, interaction with other players or a connection to the gameworld.    … Expand
  84. Dan_
    Sep 7, 2015
    3
    Olvidaros de las promesas por cumplir y los DLC a un precio accesible. La política de Frontier es simplemente una bofetada a los jugadores que han apostado desde los comienzos por el juego y esperaban verlo crecer y desarrollarse. Además si eres hispanohablante suma un puntapié en la entrepierna, no se han molestado en traducirlo a nuestro idioma, han pasado la pelota a la coumunidad deOlvidaros de las promesas por cumplir y los DLC a un precio accesible. La política de Frontier es simplemente una bofetada a los jugadores que han apostado desde los comienzos por el juego y esperaban verlo crecer y desarrollarse. Además si eres hispanohablante suma un puntapié en la entrepierna, no se han molestado en traducirlo a nuestro idioma, han pasado la pelota a la coumunidad de hispanoparlantes (que era enviadiable... no sé si con la política de Frontier podrá mantenerla)… Expand
  85. Thunderflexx
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    This game is not at all what I expected from the previews. I was after a game with cool space battles, where finding your enemy is relatively painless, tracking the enemy and getting a gun lock would make sense, then having the ability to actually kill an enemy youve spent all the time tracking, locking, and firing at. I get that this is a simulation, but like...youre in a **** spaceThis game is not at all what I expected from the previews. I was after a game with cool space battles, where finding your enemy is relatively painless, tracking the enemy and getting a gun lock would make sense, then having the ability to actually kill an enemy youve spent all the time tracking, locking, and firing at. I get that this is a simulation, but like...youre in a **** space ship that has hyper drive...and you have lasers that can only shoot straight, can only hit things 3 feet in front of your fricken face, and overheat after a very short amount of shots. Its lame as **** **** this game! If only I could get money back on a ****ty software puchase.… Expand
  86. zitrux
    Dec 27, 2015
    3
    frustrating game. ship controls is really akward and hard to master. Maybe game for some hardcore Space simulator fans but cant recommend for anyone else
  87. Jezior
    Jul 30, 2016
    3
    Elite sounds much better on paper then it is in real life. Massive up to the scale galaxy is empty and lacks any kind of activity, it is really hard to find a player, combat is unbelievably boring. There is only a grind to bigger shop over and over again. Only reason why it receives such a good scores is because there no competition for it at the time in space simulator genre. If you thinkElite sounds much better on paper then it is in real life. Massive up to the scale galaxy is empty and lacks any kind of activity, it is really hard to find a player, combat is unbelievably boring. There is only a grind to bigger shop over and over again. Only reason why it receives such a good scores is because there no competition for it at the time in space simulator genre. If you think about purchase wait for No Man Sky instead. It can be only better.
    What a waste of a fantastic concept. This game has nice moments but the fade really quickly in abyss of boredom.    … Expand
  88. Heydan
    Nov 4, 2018
    3
    The game has a strongly bigoted community paired with a staunchly Christian only narrative; but I do believe that there are a couple of open-minded people at the developer's studio. If you do not have an issue being prostylized to by Christans, banned for being a Jew, or can find the hand-full of people at the developer's studio that understand a galaxy might be diverse then its not thatThe game has a strongly bigoted community paired with a staunchly Christian only narrative; but I do believe that there are a couple of open-minded people at the developer's studio. If you do not have an issue being prostylized to by Christans, banned for being a Jew, or can find the hand-full of people at the developer's studio that understand a galaxy might be diverse then its not that bad of a game.

    On the technical side of things the game is quickly becoming dated despite the most recent patch. The developer has failed to meet it's targets or fulfill its backer promises. Although they are constantly overhauling the game to expand on things like mining and exploration they have not provided basic features which other games in the same genre were able to complete over a year ago such as the ability to walk around and landing on more than just non-atmospheric planets.

    All that said it does have some fleeting redeeming qualities and can be fun in short burst if you have friends to play with.    … Expand
  89. Xiphiqix
    Oct 20, 2020
    3
    Frontier Developments have not delivered what they promised. After years of stringing their community along, ultimately they created a litter box instead of a sandbox. Game breaking, poorly thought out, implemented systems and mechanic's have been introduced but never fixed. The company lacks development discipline and focus. We have heard the game has so much potential but it mostlyFrontier Developments have not delivered what they promised. After years of stringing their community along, ultimately they created a litter box instead of a sandbox. Game breaking, poorly thought out, implemented systems and mechanic's have been introduced but never fixed. The company lacks development discipline and focus. We have heard the game has so much potential but it mostly has grind with a complete lack of direction.… Expand
  90. Xanuviz
    Mar 23, 2023
    3
    I originally started playing this game just when it came out on steam, and I kind of fell in love with it initially, the potential of this game was amazing and I love space games and MMOs so this was a must buy for me. The developers never really achieved anything with the game over the years that it has been out, only adding few new things each major DLC which you have to buy to getI originally started playing this game just when it came out on steam, and I kind of fell in love with it initially, the potential of this game was amazing and I love space games and MMOs so this was a must buy for me. The developers never really achieved anything with the game over the years that it has been out, only adding few new things each major DLC which you have to buy to get access to them. The problem with this game is that it is too grindy, you would have to spend thousands of hours to get some of the better ships and grind out your ranks within this game to actually get anywhere. And the grind isn't even fun, it is extremely repetitive and becomes boring very quickly. Any new content that is released just adds a massive amount of grind into the game instead of some compelling and fun gameplay. And with the fiasco release of the Odyssey DLC the developers just completely cancelled any future console development for this game as well as cancelling that DLC for consoles. The game had a lot of potential but it was completely and entirely wasted by the developers and the game is just a dying waste of time right now.… Expand
  91. Hawkcircle
    Jan 13, 2015
    2
    I love space games. I was extremely disappointed to discover I don't like this one. While pretty, the learning curve is just too high. You also can lose everything in just a moment, whether Solo or in group mode. Bottom line, it's just not "fun" as a whole.
  92. Lorderan
    Dec 18, 2014
    2
    My god guys, don't even bother. You will need 3-4hrs fighting the "tutorial" let alone the bloody game, which it just dumps you in a hangar without any direction. Worst early game experience I have ever had. Low score because I'm tired of fighting the game to play it!!!
  93. mutatedwombat
    Dec 22, 2014
    2
    Disappointingly devoid of content, and still buggy at release. This is essentially a single player game that you cannot play offline. Multiplayer support is superficial and incomplete.
  94. Not_Casual
    May 7, 2015
    2
    There's a lot of stuff here that's neat, but to 'release' the game in it's current state is just a setup to be disappointed.
    The multiplayer has no grouping systems at all. No way to share missions, waypoints, or bounties. Defeats the purpose of working together. And pvp conflict is completely undermined by there being no penalty/countermeasures for death logging. About to kill someone?    There's a lot of stuff here that's neat, but to 'release' the game in it's current state is just a setup to be disappointed.
    The multiplayer has no grouping systems at all. No way to share missions, waypoints, or bounties. Defeats the purpose of working together. And pvp conflict is completely undermined by there being no penalty/countermeasures for death logging. About to kill someone? Blip, they just logged off so they didn't lose anything.
    For a 4 Billion star system galaxy there is little variety in populated areas, and most populated systems look/feel the same because every faction is using the same two or three space station models. There is no voice in the game. All things are text based unless you can voice with a friend on the lonely multiplayer. To top off the lack of variety, missions are usually "Haul this somewhere", "Kill this dude", "Kill -These- Dudes", and "Bring me Something". Even the old freelancer had double the variety of missions and the culture differences in people who settled in different areas gave great variety to the people you could meet.

    The only thing this game is currently good for, is the flight model, which is better than Star citizen's flying turret vomit comit mess; and the Accurate 1.1 scaling of the universe. It's a neat little star explorer simulator but that's all it has going for it right now.

    I'm really hoping they continue to add things. I hear they only released it because the publisher pressured them for a 'release' or they would pull the plug. I will continue to wait for the game to be the polished mmo space adventure that I was promised. And I will update this review as they add their little weekly patches.

    Update-
    After a few months, the wings update has allowed people to group, and that's just about the only noticeable improvement. I gave this game a lot of leeway with my previous score, but the insane lack of meaningful updates is continuing to cripple this seemingly already dead game. Death logging is still undermining the entire point of an open world setting. There is 0 risk because anyone can alt+f4 with no consequence whatsoever. Furthermore the ability to take the same ship between open world and single player is utterly mind boggling. Grind your dream ship without risk in single player and then log into open play to nuke everyone. And when you're done be sure to alt+f4 to avoid dying. To top it all off, I've been playing this since release, and aside from friends i've cooped with, not seen ANY OTHER PLAYERS.

    To sum it up, essentially everything this game promised to be is currently a lie. The only pleasure to be had in this is in the exploration. The ai is too dumb to provide any sort of combat challenge. Other players seem entirely absent, or exploit the game to undermine any pvp. And even when you do go out to explore eventually the billions of unnamed systems all start to seem alike save for the one or two with rare celestial bodies. Even then these are rare and you visit them once. Avoid this like the plague until its sold at about 10 dollars, or the game crippling multiplayer issues are resolved.    … Expand
  95. Budget_Security
    Dec 25, 2020
    2
    My first takeoff at the starting station went like this: The autopilot (you can't turn it off first time) stopped working before station exit, resulting in timeout and getting blown up by station defences, and then getting blamed despite having no control over ship. This was also happening to other players in the station. EPIC FAIL.

    Huge potential, ruined by interface and balancing    My first takeoff at the starting station went like this: The autopilot (you can't turn it off first time) stopped working before station exit, resulting in timeout and getting blown up by station defences, and then getting blamed despite having no control over ship. This was also happening to other players in the station. EPIC FAIL.

    Huge potential, ruined by interface and balancing flaws.
    Very bad interface and control schemes. The simplest of actions are made convoluted. Bad tutorials, so you have to spend hours looking at youtube community tutorials instead. This game seems to be optimised for HOTAS and VR, without enough consideration for mouse and keyboard. PvE NPC difficulty balancing is awful, and they cheat. PvP is also broken (engineering etc). I also ran into many serious bugs (my PC runs other games fine). Such a pity, as this game has great potential.    … Expand
  96. jseph1234
    Oct 14, 2015
    2
    This game is a boring, repetitive incomplete game. Its not worth $60 that is currently being charged. More like $25 and it has too much grind in it. The developers are constantly changing their story on coming features and the next expansion is $45.
  97. cassius769
    Feb 11, 2016
    2
    Was big fun of Fronier. Now nothing changed apart graphics. It is either where you start qes to dock and if you go somewhere further away from starting point there is empty space. No one. I mean no human players. The sequence of docking is painful when you have to wait these long seconds watching a bit of metal tilting by 30 degrees.

    Boring to tears.
  98. Deionarra
    Feb 9, 2015
    2
    The first four hours were good. Getting into the game, learning the systems and exploring a bit, so far so good. Then after trying everything, mechanically speaking, that the game has to offer it becomes apparent that the game is a hollow affair with placeholder design everywhere and no depth at all to the mind-bogglingly big galaxy. Width with no depth is the very definition of this game.The first four hours were good. Getting into the game, learning the systems and exploring a bit, so far so good. Then after trying everything, mechanically speaking, that the game has to offer it becomes apparent that the game is a hollow affair with placeholder design everywhere and no depth at all to the mind-bogglingly big galaxy. Width with no depth is the very definition of this game. It has potential to grow, but I didn't buy a game for its future potential, I bought it to play a fun game - and currently Elite: Dangerous is the most anti-fun grind you can possibly imagine.… Expand
  99. Necron99
    Feb 4, 2016
    2
    This game falls short and by a long way, It looks great has amazing audio and pretty good flight mechanics, Sadly that where it ends! After that its just a truck sim in space with the odd bit of combat thrown in, To make things worse they the add a DLC that add planet landings to the game, This is adds nothing in the way of game-play just more shallow and empty game mechanics with nothingThis game falls short and by a long way, It looks great has amazing audio and pretty good flight mechanics, Sadly that where it ends! After that its just a truck sim in space with the odd bit of combat thrown in, To make things worse they the add a DLC that add planet landings to the game, This is adds nothing in the way of game-play just more shallow and empty game mechanics with nothing to do charged are a premium.… Expand
  100. Cidcaldensfey
    Jul 1, 2015
    2
    I played Elite Dangerous when it first came out for about two or three months. I just came back to it and this is the skinny.

    PROS Graphics are fantastic. Absolutely lovely visuals. Audio is great, one of the best in a game in a while. Flight controls feel awesome. I use an X55 Rhino and it works perfectly. Oculus Rift DKII makes this game -absolutely amazing- CONS Graphics    I played Elite Dangerous when it first came out for about two or three months. I just came back to it and this is the skinny.

    PROS
    Graphics are fantastic. Absolutely lovely visuals.
    Audio is great, one of the best in a game in a while.
    Flight controls feel awesome. I use an X55 Rhino and it works perfectly.
    Oculus Rift DKII makes this game -absolutely amazing-

    CONS
    Graphics are getting hammered into the ground with each new patch. FD has said this was due to bugs, but for some reason I think it coincides with the XBox release.

    The game itself is -extremely- boring and very convoluted. Missions are timed, which isn't an issue, but to complete these missions is more of a chance of luck. Random spawn areas in space called 'unidentified signal source' are random spawns, so you are entirely at mercy of a random number generator when it comes to trying to complete missions. Not only this, but the missions are not explained very well. Example, you need to kill three pirates in system X. Okay, so you go to system X but you have no idea what the pirates, who they are, where they are, etc. Everyone says 'the game doesn't spoonfeed you' which is true, but at the same time the game doesn't explain ANYTHING at all to you. It's not fun, just bad/lazy design.

    The game offers the illusion of freedom but in truth Frontier Development controls everything. You are less of a player and more of an NPC. You cannot customize your ships outside of loadouts and pre-defined paint job designed by FD. You cannot form guilds/outfits. You cannot trade credits/items with other players (there is no trade interface for player-to-player trading). You have to follow ingame laws imposed by FD, for instance there are actual SPEEDING LAWS (Yes, the same things as IRL) where you will get fined for speeding while in the process of docking, only if you hit anyone. But still, the game has SPEEDING LAWS.

    Want to play with a friend? The game now allows you to form a three-man wing with two other people. However, the game's instancing issues prevent players from being able to be in the same instance together. So...it kind of defeats itself.

    The game's AI is terrible. And I'm not talking about the aspect of combat, I'm talking about just overall. For instance, if you accidentally bump or hit a system authority vessel (police) you will become wanted and instantly blown up. No chance for forgiveness, no sorry, no 'oh it was an accident'. You can lose hundreds of billions of credits in a split second because an AI cop flew infront of you/bumped into you.

    The community is very bad. The majority of players are masochists and will tell you to git gud or go play something else for complaining about the game in any way. They prefer the game to remain as its 1984 iteration and don't care for anything which may have happened since then in the gaming world/game design and development.

    Powerplay is a new thing they put into the game to get people to play it. While it looks cool, it actually is nothing more than a boardgame played over a course of a week. A lot of players have actually said that the amount of time needed to get anything out of it makes it out to be a second job. If you are a casual gamer, you will not be able to attain the benefits/rewards involved with it.

    All in all, Elite Dangerous is a fantastic piece of technology and audio engingeering, but as a game

    IT
    IS
    NOT
    FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    My recommendation is to not play. FD has gone silent with players and a lot of people are becoming disenfranchised with the game. I don't recommend this game at all.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

65
#65 Best PC Game of 2014
5
#5 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
2
#2 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 54 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 46 out of 54
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 54
  3. Negative: 0 out of 54
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jul 8, 2015
    80
    First minute the game takes your breath away and then it entertains you for another couple of hours to end up like a meditative tool for hard working individuals. What a waste and shame for a game in such beautiful environment. [Issue#253]
  2. Ragequit.gr
    May 11, 2015
    90
    Everyone who played the original game back in the 80's, should be right at home. It's the 21st Century version of "Elite." But newer, uninitiated players may find it strangely desolate and repetitive. A grand space simulation, aimed at the series' hardcore fans.
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  3. Games.cz
    Apr 23, 2015
    80
    You can focus on the journey, not the destination – even when some "road work" signs will bother you for the time being in the reincarnated Elite. But their numbers are declining with every new update so a thirty-year-old vision becomes more and more complete.
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