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. 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
  2. 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
  3. Slickums
    Feb 3, 2015
    0
    Really tried to like this, but after 6 weeks giving it a go, me and my friends have given up.
    So overhyped - shame on some of the reviewers. Can't believe we bought it and stumped up $60 for this empty, broken and frustrating game.
    There are lots of promises of future content, but I really don't think it's been designed very well as it stands, and promises are worth spit anyway.
    YMMV.
  4. TravisPerkins
    Feb 6, 2015
    0
    Guy in the other office was raving about this for months, so I bought it when it came out.
    Asked him today if he was still playing - he said nope "It's too boring and fake".
    He's dead right. Wish I'd waited before buying. Oh well, it's only money, right? LoL.
  5. suntox
    Aug 30, 2015
    0
    Be careful with this game. The people who preordered this game have still not received an actual game with content. All you got by now is a framework of 400 billion star systems which are just generic and empty (automatically created). Generic missions that are extremely boring with over 90% travel time (hours), everywhere the same. The same 3 station models in every system. Only a fewBe careful with this game. The people who preordered this game have still not received an actual game with content. All you got by now is a framework of 400 billion star systems which are just generic and empty (automatically created). Generic missions that are extremely boring with over 90% travel time (hours), everywhere the same. The same 3 station models in every system. Only a few available ships and little equipment. There is close to no content next to this. So at the moment only dreamers and roleplayers actually find what they want.

    And instead of adding the missing content, they offer you the next big update for the price of a full game!!!

    Plus the forum moderators are very agressive if you talk about that on either steam or frontier forum. They ban you on steam forum for fake reasons if you don't shut up when they tell you to, and remove your valid comments. This is pure fascism.

    The name David Braben now seems to stand for exploitation and fraud. Very saddening.    … Expand
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. WyattDerp
    Jan 30, 2015
    0
    Like others, I bought into the hype some of the reviews and totally false trailers pushed. Seriously wonder if those reviewers actually played the game for more than an hour.
    Well I have, and although I thought it was fantastic for a week, the cracks started to appear dang quick.
    You can't get away from it - the more honest reviews have nailed it. It's a shallow, hollow, soulless game    Like others, I bought into the hype some of the reviews and totally false trailers pushed. Seriously wonder if those reviewers actually played the game for more than an hour.
    Well I have, and although I thought it was fantastic for a week, the cracks started to appear dang quick.
    You can't get away from it - the more honest reviews have nailed it. It's a shallow, hollow, soulless game with little to offer apart from initially pleasing visuals and a good sound treatment.
    And everything DOES start to look the same, as you do the four things that you're allowed to.
    Waste of $60. Avoid guys.    … Expand
  10. WiggyStardust
    Feb 9, 2015
    0
    Whoa!
    Not what I expected after watching the trailers and reading some of the reviews.
    Firstly you really do need a fancy joystick to play properly. Fair enough bought one. Been playing for a couple of weeks - graphics and sound are good at first. BUT, all the star stations look the same, NPCS are dumb as rocks, so they are either boring or instantly kill you. Missions are crap.    Whoa!
    Not what I expected after watching the trailers and reading some of the reviews.
    Firstly you really do need a fancy joystick to play properly. Fair enough bought one.
    Been playing for a couple of weeks - graphics and sound are good at first.
    BUT, all the star stations look the same, NPCS are dumb as rocks, so they are either boring or instantly kill you.
    Missions are crap. Seriously guys, this isn't 1995 any more.
    Wow, just not worth $60 bucks. Not worth $20 bucks either! lol.
    Yeah, server outages, gankers, can't meet your buddies, crappy comms.
    Get the picture?    … Expand
  11. Angus_MacGyver
    Feb 24, 2015
    1
    I am not happy with the way in which this game was marketed to customers.
    Elite Dangerous was to offer me an ingame multi player experience which were not implemented on release. How a company can not even have a way in which players can communicate with each other in game is beyond me. The MMO side of this game does not exist.
    That aside, ED was enjoyable for the first week until one    I am not happy with the way in which this game was marketed to customers.
    Elite Dangerous was to offer me an ingame multi player experience which were not implemented on release. How a company can not even have a way in which players can communicate with each other in game is beyond me. The MMO side of this game does not exist.

    That aside, ED was enjoyable for the first week until one comes to realise the bugs, exploits and total lack of content available for a very expensive game just left me feeling defeated.
    Ship insurance? This is the worst idea since Everquest use to penalise players for deaths by removing hard earned exp. It is quite possible in Elit Dangerous to lose everything you have worked for in a matter of seconds, due to lag, poor NPC AI or just GTA griefers out to destroy your ship using hacks.
    Yes Elite dangerous is a new game, and the bones are very solid. Should FD waited a couple of months before releasing? Yes probably but the push for Christmas sales put it onto the shelves, so now they must contend with angry customers.
    There are some PVE group games available, but without the correct ingame chat/communication, it still feels like a lost cause.
    The current game is very tiresome and dull but does have massive potential. I just hope the Devs hurry up and fix what is already here because as far as I am concerned, it still feels like Beta testing to me.
    My biggest concern for ED and partly the reason why I was banned from the official forums was because I felt the only testers of this game were Flyboys, die hard fans of the original. So we ended up with an almost duplicate game from 1984 but with better graphics.
    You can't do this, a game needs to evolve, it needs to captivate its audience not suck their will to live ( try trade runs for 4 days straight ).
    Flyboys will tell you to experience all the game has to offer..... Right....
    If you are going to market a game as an MMO it neefds to up to the standards of what most expect an MMO to have. ED does not even have the basics of any MMO currently.

    I have high expectations for this game in the future, if you are thinking about buying this dont.
    Wait a few months, check in on reviews, there is just not enough to offer more than a couple weeks of excitement here and the patches seem to be creating more problems than they are fixing.    … Expand
  12. 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
  13. RadioShed
    Feb 11, 2015
    0
    Thought this was supposed to be a rich interactive and believable galaxy simulation.
    WRONG!
    The trading sim is pathetic, the missions are generic fetch quests, I can barely work up the enthusiasm to type a review here.
    Superficial and fake. Instanced, grindy, boring.
    Tedious, punishing, and boring. Absolutely hate it and have deleted it.
    Enjoyed the graphics for the first week though.
  14. 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
  15. 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
  16. 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.
  17. 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
  18. Saratosa75
    Dec 14, 2015
    1
    Horizons buyers, be aware of a few facts, before you decide to pay $50.00 for an expansion.

    1. Premium Alpha and Beta backers are discarded, not listened to and continually been ignored, since 2014. I paid $75.00 for Premium Beta, and according to Frontier, I do not qualify to own Horizons. There are thousands of us, some paid over $140.00 and left in the ditch by Frontier    Horizons buyers, be aware of a few facts, before you decide to pay $50.00 for an expansion.

    1. Premium Alpha and Beta backers are discarded, not listened to and continually been ignored, since 2014.
    I paid $75.00 for Premium Beta, and according to Frontier, I do not qualify to own Horizons. There are thousands of us, some paid over $140.00 and left in the ditch by Frontier Developments. They are fraudulent and money grabbers with a half baked product of something they call a game, and obviously they are not implementing any meaningful changes to the game, beside adding more places to do nothing (Horizons) for a full price of a new game.
    2. Anyone bought Elite: Dangerous previously and paid for the full product $49.99, must pay another $49.99 to own Horizons. So, they have to buy twice the price, just to land on planets.
    3. Those who only buy Horizons, only have to pay $49.99 and essentially own both Elite:Dangerous and Horizons.
    Let alone the fact, that the base game "Elite:Dangerous" continues to remain just a shell of a game, an empty void with barely any game play, beside auto-generated -spawned AI ships and completely non-functioning economy. Despite the raving reviews a year ago, the game has not evolved, beside a few additional gameplay elements, which has not changed much the game.
    You can kill thousands of ships, it will not make any meaningful (nobody is getting weaker or stronger) changes in the game world.
    You can trade thousands of items all across the systems, nobody is getting richer or poorer, beside you, and your reward is, that you can buy a bigger ship and do the same mindless/meaningless truck driver job or arcade shooter.

    The "Horizons" addon, let's you land on planets with no atmosphere, but not even all.

    Please, tell me if this is a fair business practice.
    Even the most criticized EA Incorp. with its endless addons and expansions to their core games don't do this.
    If you buy - for example - Battlefield 4 (core), for $49.99, your expansion of your pick will not cost another $49.99, and they aren't only adding another rifle to shoot with.
    Following Frontier Developments' money grabber practices of the past- my predictions:
    - You will be able to land on planets with atmospheres (sometime in 2016) for additional $20.00 for Horizon owners. Elite:Dangerous owners (if they still havent deserted this empty shell of nothing) must pay another $70.00 to own Horizons with "Elite: Atmosphere" upgrade.
    -You will be able to land on gas giants for addititional ($20.00) for Horizon owners, or you can get a Gold-Platinum-Game of The Year (no doubt the reviewers will hype it again, with a whole-total of 5 mins of gameplay) full package of Elite:Dangerous Horizons Atmospheric Gas Giant Edition for as little as $95.00.

    Previous Elite:Dangerous owners with no Horizons upgrade must pay an addtional $120.00 to enjoy Horizons+Atmospheric Landing+Gas Giants super package.
    -    … Expand
  19. 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
  20. Megalon
    Dec 18, 2014
    0
    The slogan you will hear floating around the Elite community is "play YOUR way". Well i am here to tell you, that is only true if your way happens to coincide with the way the developers play. There is a glaring sense of selfishness in the development of the game that has turned out for the worse upon release. It is, as others have said, a shell of a game. There are some great flightThe slogan you will hear floating around the Elite community is "play YOUR way". Well i am here to tell you, that is only true if your way happens to coincide with the way the developers play. There is a glaring sense of selfishness in the development of the game that has turned out for the worse upon release. It is, as others have said, a shell of a game. There are some great flight mechanics and wonderful graphics holding up a flimsy grind fest that lacks any depth or character or content or multiplayer or anything that would make it an actual game. Elite: "Dangerous" is basically a space flight simulator minus the simulation.

    Just to give you some history, i backed the game when it was in closed beta and have played for a few hundred hours and have done everything the "game" has to offer. So i want to try to give you a quick run down of the features they are ADVERTISING without all the marketing fluff to hide what you will really be getting.

    "Play Your Way"- unless you want to be a solo trader, this is the biggest lie you will find in the descriptions of the game on their website. you will not play your way unless your way is- playing alone mostly and almost never seeing another real player while trading and trading and trading and trading again to have any hope of having enough money to "Play Your Way"

    Combat- first the website will make it sound like there is great PvP bounty hunting to be had in tandem with difficult PvE. I can tell you that there mostly certainly is not any of that. What you will get is news updates at stations for bounties on players you will never see. you will probably see Jesus Christ in this game before you take down a player bounty. The AI in the game is terrible and so easy to kill or escape from that they serve as nothing more than a waste of time. However if you do happen to take some damage or lose an engagement in anything but a stock starter ship, the cost is so astronomical that your immersion will be broken the moment your read the total. When you combine this with the extremely poor pay outs for combat, what you get is a fundamentally flawed risk vs reward system in terms of combat roles.

    Exploration- exploration consists of pointing your ship at astral bodies that are "undiscovered" then trying to get to a system as far away from your discovery as possible to sell it. basically it is information trading for sightseers with a small profit margin than standard trading. i will take this time to say that, if your goal is to explore a 1:1 representation of the milky way and nothing more- this game is perfect for you.

    Trading-"your every trade contributes to the dynamic market activity". the trading system is a static, one-note system that equates to little more than "easy win mode". of course there is nothing to WIN in ED, but what you can do is make money and trading is the easiest way (and i mean painfully easy) to do that. there is no economic simulation in place and you will never have a noticeable effect on any market. the worst of it all is that they do not tell you that there were exploits during the "gamma" phase of the game and they did not wipe any players prior to the 1.0 release. so you will be playing with players in 50 million+ credit ships who are multi billionaires. I am not sure how much the last part matters because, again, you will NEVER see them anyway.

    Factions- the faction rep system is broken as far as i know but even when it is working it does not provide any tapestry or color to your world in ED. all factions are just letters on a screen in a station telling you to do more boring stuff for hours so you can gain rep (broken) and do slightly less boring stuff for slightly more money. when i got this game i said "finally, i can be like boba fett and do merc work for the empire", then on Dec 16th i started the game in a turd of a ship deep in Federation space 200 light years away from the empire's capital. it took me 3 hours to fly to the outskirts of imperial space. this is not playing MY way.

    Now, i know what you are thinking- "this has a pretty decent meta score and i totally LOVE space sims". Well, i love space sims and rely heavily on feedback from the pc gaming community when making purchases. DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THE SEMI POSITIVE REVIEWS HERE. The Elite community is filled with the most blind and relentless fan boys one will ever encounter. If you would like to put what i am saying to the test then simply register for a forum account and attempt to post some useful criticism of the game. Before you know it you will be trampled by the horses of a thousand ED white knights and the keyboard punches of mighty neck bearded fan boys. You can attribute the reviews here to a small portion of those gray bushed and naive super fans. The reality is the game is 1 year away from being complete at best and even then i have little faith in the creator and lead dev and their ability to make this game work for a contemporary community.

    Save your Money    … Expand
  21. Wyzak
    Dec 18, 2014
    0
    Have a look at the kickstarter comment feed or the refund page on their forums. Some people have been waiting for more than 27 days for a refund after Frontier broke the promise to make it an offline only game. They have stopped all communication with the customers who have been requesting refunds. Those customers are also being treated like criminals, and like they are trying to abuse theHave a look at the kickstarter comment feed or the refund page on their forums. Some people have been waiting for more than 27 days for a refund after Frontier broke the promise to make it an offline only game. They have stopped all communication with the customers who have been requesting refunds. Those customers are also being treated like criminals, and like they are trying to abuse the system.

    The game is incomplete, it features very little of the actual promised features and everything has a little star next to it saying this will only be added post-release. It took my friend and me 8 hours to reach each other because the game does not allow you to specify your start location and does not offer any fast-travel methods. That's also a post-release "promise".

    Because the game has always-online DRM the future of the game is entirely in their hands and you never actually own the game yourself. If they pull the plug on the servers tomorrow all your money and time is gone. Due to the high cost of the servers I would not be surprised if the game is F2P in 6 months to a year.

    Their EULA also allows them to add in-game advertising...

    It's actually a 7 or a 8 game, but I can't give them a score like that with the way that they are treating their customers. and for the reasons listed above.    … Expand
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. taiko88
    Dec 18, 2014
    0
    The game is a boring and dry adventure into nothingness. The awe will drop off after the first hour and you will be left wondering what else is there to do besides the simplistic combat, the mind numbing trading, or the boring exploration. The multiplayer is broken and doesn't even work, the game itself is just a shell of what the game promised by the developers. Don't worry though allThe game is a boring and dry adventure into nothingness. The awe will drop off after the first hour and you will be left wondering what else is there to do besides the simplistic combat, the mind numbing trading, or the boring exploration. The multiplayer is broken and doesn't even work, the game itself is just a shell of what the game promised by the developers. Don't worry though all these amazing awesome features they keep promising will come.… Expand
  25. 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
  26. Daffan
    Dec 17, 2014
    1
    Good flight model

    Good graphics Good Sound design --------- Multiplayer is an afterthought, in an MMO. No social features, group features. PVP is a second feature to even that with being able to move saves from singleplayer to multiplayer and back on demand. no PVE capability with friends either. peer 2 peer and instanced Nothing to do other than grind AI who cant fight    Good flight model

    Good graphics

    Good Sound design

    ---------

    Multiplayer is an afterthought, in an MMO. No social features, group features. PVP is a second feature to even that with being able to move saves from singleplayer to multiplayer and back on demand. no PVE capability with friends either. peer 2 peer and instanced

    Nothing to do other than grind AI who cant fight back, Mine rocks to sell to AI or trade with AI on static markets that cant have any player buy or sell orders or any player industry.

    Overall, a grind to get the biggest trader to carry the most to make the most profit, nothing to use money on and same for combat ships. No need to have smaller specialised craft when the biggest does everything in one, no role-warefare    … Expand
  27. 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
  28. 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
  29. AresDeus
    Jan 1, 2015
    0
    Next to no content and poor menu design. Your engine can handle the vicinity of a black hole but get´s slowed down by a freaking planet. Simple actions like docking permission requires to push a lot of buttons while you have no visibility. Almost anything you do needs to be done by scolling through menues that prevents you from flying. Exploring is a boring joke. Mining is even worse. NoNext to no content and poor menu design. Your engine can handle the vicinity of a black hole but get´s slowed down by a freaking planet. Simple actions like docking permission requires to push a lot of buttons while you have no visibility. Almost anything you do needs to be done by scolling through menues that prevents you from flying. Exploring is a boring joke. Mining is even worse. No risk vs. reward anywhere. If you are not a hardcore fanboy that loves to fall asleep while you´re doing "missions" or trading you better don´t waste your money on this game. But hey they always promise that content will come in future expansions (which you have to pay ofc). The game is a joke imho.… Expand
  30. WallyGog
    Feb 12, 2015
    0
    Another day, another update released.
    The release does not of course contain much in the way of sorely needed content - just another raft of attempted bug fixes, which will if past experience is anything to go by break twice as much as they mend.
    Other reviewers have already told you how shallow and broken the whole thing is, so I won't repeat their words. All I'll say is that if you're    Another day, another update released.
    The release does not of course contain much in the way of sorely needed content - just another raft of attempted bug fixes, which will if past experience is anything to go by break twice as much as they mend.
    Other reviewers have already told you how shallow and broken the whole thing is, so I won't repeat their words.
    All I'll say is that if you're thinking of purchasing this, have a good look at the negative reviews, and have a good think about it.
    Peace.    … 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.
    Read full review
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