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. AvailableName
    Dec 16, 2014
    1
    Always online DRM added, offline removed.
    A lot of empty space for an MMO. No MMO tools. Not much content. Repetitive. It's pretty though. I'm disappointed, this game had so much potential. If only the MOD community could have got a hold of it.
  2. Filiber
    Dec 16, 2014
    0
    It's not what they promised: no multiplayer, no freedom. You can't play with other players and, given the dimensions of the galaxy and the absence of things to do, you won't even meet anybody. Just pretty graphics and wild grinding: you make money to buy bigger ships. No challenge. You will find online free to play titles that are far better than this game.
  3. atlblackops
    Dec 19, 2014
    0
    I paid as a beta backer and regret it completely. The game is nothing it was promised to be. What you have is some great graphics with extremely shallow gameplay and features. The majority of your time will be spent traveling to and from systems, wasting money and time trying to make money. Graphics are choppy, support is nonexistent; submitting tickets is a waste of time.
  4. MJack
    Dec 16, 2014
    0
    The devs stayed true to the original formula while completely ignoring several most basic requirements of MMOs established in the last 15 years, such as reliable co-op multiplayer functionally or clans. Besides, NPCs encounter feel random and missions arbitrary and generic. In summary, the devs miserably failed to achieve their goal of create a living breathing universe.
  5. Perrial
    Jan 10, 2015
    2
    What should have been a major achievement is instead a boring disaster. The game is one long grind with only token attempts to make it interesting, what you do in the first few days is what you will do for the next few weeks, there is no story and little alters between systems and stations which makes it dull after the initial buzz has worn off.

    The sound is the best part of the game it    What should have been a major achievement is instead a boring disaster. The game is one long grind with only token attempts to make it interesting, what you do in the first few days is what you will do for the next few weeks, there is no story and little alters between systems and stations which makes it dull after the initial buzz has worn off.

    The sound is the best part of the game it truly is great, the connection issues and funding process are dubious at best (bait and switch). The graphics are decent and there are some beautiful places to see but that isn't why the majority have bought this game.

    Customer service is also an issue, taking far too long to respond and the staff can be a tad overzealous in their actions should you dare to post a negative comment on the forums. There seems to be a few who like the power a bit much shall we say and the fanbois truly do rule the forums, but there is a lot of good information there if you do buy the game.

    Overall i am disappointed with ED and wish I had never bought into it, I am seeking a refund.    … Expand
  6. 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
  7. BlipBlast
    Jan 5, 2015
    0
    What good about this game? The sound, the PR.

    I'd say the graphics are good, except when you've seen one space station 1000 times, you really don't care how polished it is. Bad? Everything else. The gameplay (ha ha), the bugs, the dire support and the dishonesty of the creator David Braben in personally betraying every kickstarter backer by failing to ship the game he promised and    What good about this game? The sound, the PR.

    I'd say the graphics are good, except when you've seen one space station 1000 times, you really don't care how polished it is.

    Bad? Everything else. The gameplay (ha ha), the bugs, the dire support and the dishonesty of the creator David Braben in personally betraying every kickstarter backer by failing to ship the game he promised and then weaseling out of giving the refunds he'd agreed to give under Kickstarter rules.

    If you're thinking of buying this, check the Frontier forums first. An ceaseless flow of complaints, lately about weeks of server fails.

    A sad tarnishing of the great name of Elite...    … Expand
  8. 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
  9. Sacrelicious
    Dec 16, 2014
    1
    meh. plain awful borefest. Sadly no refunds offered, no surprise. Stay away. Lots of empty promises :-( will sell it and hopefully get my money back otherwise.
  10. Abuba
    Jan 3, 2015
    2
    AVOID it like the plague. The game itself, is a 10. Hands down. However, when you factor in the embarrassingly atrocious customer service and tech support from Frontier, it immediately drops down to a generous 2.
    Frontier should be completely embarrassed. The game came out of Beta way too soon. It's still very buggy. Which is okay, if addressed and fixed. However, when problems arise...    AVOID it like the plague. The game itself, is a 10. Hands down. However, when you factor in the embarrassingly atrocious customer service and tech support from Frontier, it immediately drops down to a generous 2.
    Frontier should be completely embarrassed. The game came out of Beta way too soon. It's still very buggy. Which is okay, if addressed and fixed. However, when problems arise... too bad. Tickets do not get responded to, or when they do they just tell you to contact someone else. The email address Frontier provides in their Elite newsletter for feedback doesn't even exist. A clickable link to an email address and your email gets returned. The game, for over two days now, has been unplayable for about half the people playing it. The many of the servers are so bugged and failing it is unplayable. Frontier has not commented on this. Has not acknowledged this, and certainly hasn't bothered to try and fix it. They basically released a very buggy game and went on vacation to spend your money. The game itself is awesome. Having to deal with Frontier makes it not worth the time. I'm now battling to get a refund for being sold a defective, unplayable, faulty product.    … Expand
  11. SE-Apocalypse
    Jan 17, 2015
    0
    RPS called it 'the best unfinished game of 2014', and in the first 50 hours or so you will be entertained and agreeing on that sentence.

    The Problem is in the next 50 hours or so you will realize that it is more like the best 'scam' of 2014. Don´t get me wrong, the game is worth its money, because it is so wonderful in pretenting. It hides it flaws, you just assume stuff is working,    RPS called it 'the best unfinished game of 2014', and in the first 50 hours or so you will be entertained and agreeing on that sentence.

    The Problem is in the next 50 hours or so you will realize that it is more like the best 'scam' of 2014.

    Don´t get me wrong, the game is worth its money, because it is so wonderful in pretenting. It hides it flaws, you just assume stuff is working, because why should it not? But the more play the more you realize that the game is giving you placeholder mechanics everywhere a long the way.

    Persistent universe? Yeah, kind of, except everything runs on p2p without validity checks, because the servers having problems to keep up with the data already.

    Multiplayer? Yeah, kind of, p2p, works sometimes and sometimes not, player communications is giving you often connection errors and other players not in the mood for pvp interactions simply disable p2p in their router and enjoy a carefree solo experience while officially still playing on the big persistent universe.

    Background simulation for the politics, faction standings, system control, etc? Only rudimentary working, but this you might only notice after weeks of playtime into the system.

    The game is of this kind of issues and would be considered by most developers an alpha build, but frontier is charging full price. And they seem to ask us for additional money if we want to test the coming new features like "Wings" witch should include the ability to group with other players, something that is not included in the current version of the game. The beta for that should start in march.

    I wish this game would have been build with more passion, attention to detail and with a real persistent universe in mind, but in its current state you it kind of broken. Most players will reach soon the point when a fun experience turns sour because of bugs and design decisions.    … Expand
  12. Nexus-gamer
    Jan 11, 2015
    0
    The game (well its not a game really more like a demo with 4 billion stars) is nothing like advertised in trailer or game info there is no multi-player and it is really generic in design which makes it so dull to play. The only real way to make money is repetitive trading as combat often resulted in loss rather that gain of funds. Also support is non existent.

    I have heard there are    The game (well its not a game really more like a demo with 4 billion stars) is nothing like advertised in trailer or game info there is no multi-player and it is really generic in design which makes it so dull to play. The only real way to make money is repetitive trading as combat often resulted in loss rather that gain of funds. Also support is non existent.

    I have heard there are DLC coming out to rectify some of these issues but they will cost extra ££'s which I was not prepared to wait/pay for. Thankfully I sold this game and got my money back. I shall be much more careful what I spend £40 on in the future!    … Expand
  13. cheeseheads86
    Dec 16, 2014
    0
    really nice graphics and love space, but after breaking promises from kickstarter about offline mode and other features game is getting launched without id recommend staying away from this game. Cant trust them
  14. JeremyJo
    Dec 16, 2014
    0
    Grindfest in generic-space. Totally worthless title, bland dull and empty, thrown out to the market to please shareholders, they canceleld offline mode yet their marketing department is in full swing pretending to be awesome. Borderline scam.
  15. init000
    May 26, 2015
    0
    The game is an empty husk of what it could be. The main reasons why I dislike the game is that virtually all the "sandbox" aspects of the game are fake and/or marketing blather devoid of any meaning. The players actions have absolutely NO influence on the game world what so ever. Did you think that trading and item values were influenced by the actions of other players? Guess again - itsThe game is an empty husk of what it could be. The main reasons why I dislike the game is that virtually all the "sandbox" aspects of the game are fake and/or marketing blather devoid of any meaning. The players actions have absolutely NO influence on the game world what so ever. Did you think that trading and item values were influenced by the actions of other players? Guess again - its just a fake economy like in single player freelancer which changes the item prices, not the player-traders. The list goes on. So why exactly should I play a game devoid of any content (in the traditional sense) and instead play a "sandbox" when I actually don't have any influence on the sand in the box? It's basically an over-hyped flight simulator in space with a cheap economy-simulation shoehorned on. The actual gameplay is repetitive and boring without exception. If you want a real sandbox game in space (that isn't just a huge fake and trying to steal your money with the name "Elite") then give EVE Online a try. Elite offers nothing that EVE doesn't except for the flight simulator aspects (but they are basically just a huge time-sink to try and hide the fact that the game is shallow, has no breathing living world and offers virtually no content).

    Really bad game, not worth the money. Play EVE instead - that game actually offers a real sandbox where every action has an influence on the game and not just some cheap excuse like Elite Dangerous.    … Expand
  16. 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
  17. EdT1138
    Mar 3, 2015
    2
    It might as well be renamed Elite: Tedious!

    I wanted to like it, I really did, but I feel like it was a complete waste of money. I'm not saying that the game doesn't have it's fans, or that they're wrong for liking it, just that I have no idea why the hell they do.
  18. Accipiter
    Dec 16, 2014
    0
    As I see it, it is a breach of promise of the worst kind. It's false promises from Mr. Braben and Frontier that allowed them to get this project funded during the kickstarter.

    I would strongly recommend that you to get a refund what you paid if you bought any of their products. Frontier is a very bad company with horrible customer practices. Everybody need to be warned against buying    As I see it, it is a breach of promise of the worst kind. It's false promises from Mr. Braben and Frontier that allowed them to get this project funded during the kickstarter.

    I would strongly recommend that you to get a refund what you paid if you bought any of their products.
    Frontier is a very bad company with horrible customer practices. Everybody need to be warned against buying anything from them.    … Expand
  19. mne2holt
    Jan 21, 2015
    0
    Awful, Awful, Awful.

    Don't listen to the fan base hype. More and more negative reviews creeping up now for this. Also If you look at the positive scores more people actually disagree with them rather than agree, this tells you a story. I actually feel sorry for those that have spent hundreds on pre-release backing the game only to be let down come release on a scale that is    Awful, Awful, Awful.

    Don't listen to the fan base hype. More and more negative reviews creeping up now for this. Also If you look at the positive scores more people actually disagree with them rather than agree, this tells you a story.

    I actually feel sorry for those that have spent hundreds on pre-release backing the game only to be let down come release on a scale that is astronomical.

    If you are considering buying this I STRONGLY suggest you don't for at least another year. Remember right now you are only buying a premium BETA, the game is so far from being finished it is more likely to never actually get finished as it runs out of funding. We will know this when the game is on a silly low offer of £15-£20 to try and bring more funding in, sign the game is doomed.

    Sandbox OK, yet this game has no sense of direction at all right now just a grind of Bulletin Board contracts. A lot of the contracts are still widely buggy and you are unable to complete them. You will soon become frustrated with looking for unidentified sources only to warp in and out of them looking for the needed parts of your contracts. The only ones I have found to be flawless so far are Cargo Contracts, so if you just want to be hauling items from place to place then this is the game for you. BORING!!

    Looks nice not really, even the loading screen looks like it is 8bit. Don't believe me? Google search Elite Dangerous Loading Screen and look at the images, you will soon see what I mean. Yet in the game Stations are different and do look very nice. Once you have Docked and Launched you have seen it all, repeated sequence/scene over and over. If you like to just see big suns and little white dots then go for it because that is all this is right now. Don't go off the screenshots those are the few nice things you see for about 30 seconds in total of 2 hours game play.

    Sounds are great though and I am a fan of the in game comms, they have filtered it to make you sound like you are in space though this IMO does need tweaking as even in the main menu there is far to much interference so just reverted back to my usual comm method.

    Controls are nice and seem to be about the only thing right now that is good in the game, you need to use the whole keyboard but there is no need to panic it is a slow paced game leaving you plenty of opportunity to set yourself right. After a few hours play you will find you have worn the 'J' key out since you are constantly warping from place to place just to see the same thing over and over.

    MMO, 9 hours of play and can't recall seeing another player. Instead of focusing on such a huge world more focus was needed on the actual playing experience of this game a smaller Universe could have been expanded at a later date, where as now it is just a Universe of NOTHING. Lets be realistic here though 400 Billion Star Galaxy with a player population of maybe a few 10's of thousands, your going to find it hard to find anyone unless your playing with friends in which even then NPCs is about all you will see.

    You will find all your goals are is to grind for credits chasing the next Big ship you can afford and the price gaps are HUGE.

    The game has such potential but I can't ever seeing this being released. Maybe come 2020 in release v8.0095. Which will be to late as Star Citizen will have released and this will be forgotten since they have another 12 months till release and have the time to analysis this game and make sure there's is right. Though the Russians millionaires seem to have that sealed up already a little like EVE due to it's over excessive ship prices.

    So for now it is back to EVE which I am not a Elite player of maybe only 100 hours of actual game play in BUT at least you have a direction to head in. For the price of this its almost 6 months of EVE. I suggest going to play that for 6 months and come back and see what's happened to this then.

    If we are all honest all we really wanted was a first person version of EVE, the baseline was already made. So ask yourselves this, How did they get it so WRONG???    … Expand
  20. 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
  21. yuikiyo
    Feb 13, 2015
    0
    The most disappointing game I have played for ages. Empty, boring, unfinished and lots of bugs. This is an early access game being mis-sold as finished. All this talk of "It will get better" is a joke. The first big update just arrived and it is a wreck. Already Frontier have rushed out three emergency patches. They should have got this game in a working sate BEFORE claiming it wasThe most disappointing game I have played for ages. Empty, boring, unfinished and lots of bugs. This is an early access game being mis-sold as finished. All this talk of "It will get better" is a joke. The first big update just arrived and it is a wreck. Already Frontier have rushed out three emergency patches. They should have got this game in a working sate BEFORE claiming it was finished and taking people's money

    And $60 !! Don't buy, instead throw your money down the drain. That's more fun.    … Expand
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. floater
    Dec 16, 2014
    1
    I have spent more than 150 dollars as an Elite backer after hearing phrases like MMO, breathing universe from David Braben the mounth of the horse so to say.

    They really have some talented software engineers and I admire the scientific accuracy of the known galaxy. However they are still living in the 1980 in terms of what constitues for them to be enjoyable gameplay. Its a tech demo    I have spent more than 150 dollars as an Elite backer after hearing phrases like MMO, breathing universe from David Braben the mounth of the horse so to say.

    They really have some talented software engineers and I admire the scientific accuracy of the known galaxy. However they are still living in the 1980 in terms of what constitues for them to be enjoyable gameplay. Its a tech demo that would have been enough for the simple minded folks in 1980 but nowdays it is not fun. It is missing the human element!

    You will have to do repetitive space trucking, mining, or bounty hunting with only predictable boring lame ass AI around. These mechanics weren't terrible if it was actually a living universe where you meet other players too who bring in the more complex and fun interactions.

    Forget it, their net code has been always terrible and it is still a shock how they can release it that way. They use cheap ass not working peer to peer networking. However even if net code worked and they used dedicated servers as any MMO would do the gameplay is still killed by the on demand switch to solo player mode.

    -You cannot pirate players since they just switch to solo, so you are left with lame ass repetitive AI.
    -You cannot bounty hunt players since they just switch to solo, so you are left with lame ass repetitive AI.
    -Mining is like watching paint dry, since you guessed it you just do it in solo.
    -You can go out to explore and your chance of meeting another player goes down from 0.0001% in known space to 0.000000000000000000000000001% or in lay terms 0. Oh irrational enough you will still be intercepted by lame ass AI even in the most desolate avoided far away piece of space though. Breaking immersion if you had any to begin with.
    etc.

    There is no risk vs reward in the system not counting lame ass AI.

    And dont fall for the 500 gazillion systems marketing ploy. Procedural generation is nice to have and a good piece of tech, but it kills gameplay, it does not equal fun content. Every station, system is just the same after a while, no point in travelling anywhere after you have seen a few of them.

    I wanted to like the game, but the fact I did not touch it for weeks now tells everything. There is a hard core fan base for it as far as I can see from the insane 10 points. Simple folks will like repetitive no content simple things as it seems.    … Expand
  25. jamotide
    Dec 21, 2014
    2
    The game looks pretty, but that is all. It feels empty and void, I suppose that is what you would expect from space. But still there is nothing to do, and since the game has always-online DRM now, you can't even play on your own pace.
    Mission times keep running even if you go to sleep. Other people will ruin your trade routes even if you play the singleplayer mode.
    Recommendation: Wait    The game looks pretty, but that is all. It feels empty and void, I suppose that is what you would expect from space. But still there is nothing to do, and since the game has always-online DRM now, you can't even play on your own pace.
    Mission times keep running even if you go to sleep. Other people will ruin your trade routes even if you play the singleplayer mode.

    Recommendation: Wait till it is freetoplay in a few months.    … Expand
  26. gjmoss1
    Feb 19, 2015
    0
    Well I am not usually one for sci fi or other space sims but this game has me hooked. I found and still find it a steep learning curve but I don't spend hours and hours a day getting frustrated I usually play it for 2-3 hours a day. I like the fact there is no real rush to do things besides the docking which I don't really like and can be annoying when the are telling you to dock fast orWell I am not usually one for sci fi or other space sims but this game has me hooked. I found and still find it a steep learning curve but I don't spend hours and hours a day getting frustrated I usually play it for 2-3 hours a day. I like the fact there is no real rush to do things besides the docking which I don't really like and can be annoying when the are telling you to dock fast or your ship will be destroyed, besides that it's a good solid game.… Expand
  27. 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
  28. waffo
    Feb 12, 2015
    0
    Tragic to see how the grate game Elite has been tarnished by this dire knock-off. Graphics and sound are good but that counts for nothing since everything else about Elite Dangerous stinks. One just has to play it once to discover how little resemblance this has to game David Braben promised. Since the launch, David Braben has gone completely absent from the public eye. You'd think he'd atTragic to see how the grate game Elite has been tarnished by this dire knock-off. Graphics and sound are good but that counts for nothing since everything else about Elite Dangerous stinks. One just has to play it once to discover how little resemblance this has to game David Braben promised. Since the launch, David Braben has gone completely absent from the public eye. You'd think he'd at least deliver some apology like Molyneux, but no. He's got everyone's money, is fighting tooth and nail against legal action from backers entitled to refunds, and still the game is almost complete empty, except for 400 billion bugs.… Expand
  29. TonyFinn2
    Mar 9, 2015
    2
    I am amazed there are people giving this game 10. Actually I'm not. Lots of people put $100s into the development of this game and desperately want it to survive. Well sorry, I think it deserves a 2 in the current state. So much of this game is missing. I'll try again in a year.
  30. aatomix
    May 2, 2015
    2
    The game is allright, altough there is a sense of scope, every station looks the same, every pirate behaves the same, all the ships look the same.

    No offline singleplayer.
    No steam keys for early backers.
  31. TarStone
    Jun 18, 2015
    2
    A shallow, buggy, poorly designed space shooter with limited multiplayer and awesome graphics and sound. Does not resemble the kickstarter pitch, development diaries or the trade show talks. Not in the same league as the previous Elite games. Currently being consolised. YMMV.
  32. Mordgier
    Dec 22, 2014
    2
    I am a huge fan of the space sim genre and have backed this and the SC projects. I really really wanted to love ED - but the released game is at best a proof of concept alpha that is being pawned off as a full release.

    I really wish this game was successful, I really wish Frontier didn't run out of money and rush this out the door - instead what we have is a shallow instanced online    I am a huge fan of the space sim genre and have backed this and the SC projects. I really really wanted to love ED - but the released game is at best a proof of concept alpha that is being pawned off as a full release.

    I really wish this game was successful, I really wish Frontier didn't run out of money and rush this out the door - instead what we have is a shallow instanced online only mess that has no multiplayer features.

    Let me just be clear here: This is an online only game that you CANNOT play with your friends. Everything is instanced and there is NO way to easily switch instances. You CANNOT reliably play with friends. There is no grouping mechanic. No group missions etc...but the game is online only!

    I can almost get past that massive blunder if not for the fact that the game play is unbelievably shallow. There is no grand plot. That's fine - but there isn't much of anything else to do. The entirety of what the game has to offer can be experienced in one sitting. I'm serious. In less than 6 hours you can do all there is to do in ED. Never mind that half the things that you CAN do in ED are not worth doing at all. Combat is horrid as all ships handle like the fat space trucks that they are and bounty rewards are too meager to justify the effort. In fact - bounty hunting rewards are so low that if you die once in 20 bounties, you will lose money. Exploration is also completely meaningless and pays very very poorly.

    In short, right now, there are only two things to do in ED, fly from station to station hauling cargo or mine rocks. Both of these things are pure tedium. There is no reason to do them except to get the bigger ship that will let you haul/mine more. That's it. There is nothing more.    … Expand
  33. kurtheil
    Dec 16, 2014
    0
    The support it is terrible, they don't care about players. They break promises and stall even if you are in the right.
    Game seems empty, servers are unrealiable, playing with friends only is not easy. There is no offline mode.
  34. 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.
  35. Trin
    Dec 23, 2014
    0
    Nothing here but broken promises, overhyped marketing and always on DRM. The game is simplistic, shallow and doesn't deliver, the company are untrustworthy and prone to talking up everything that isn't in the game ... yet. (yeah .. right, lies and marketing)

    Backers are fighting to get refunds. Nuff said.
  36. ffart
    Mar 5, 2015
    1
    I had such high hopes for this game. Perhaps one day it will be worth the money, but not now. A vast empty simulation of space with combat which soon becomes pointless grind. Mining, exploration, ttrading, all broken, all show, just a bad joke. So disappointing. Braben, stick to your shallow animal games.
  37. Rowbot
    Jun 12, 2015
    0
    I'm going to keep this really short and sweet, since most of the honest reviews touch on 99% of what I'd tell you, anyways.

    -You will most likely not enjoy this game if you don't have a flight stick/HOTAS setup of some sort. They don't tell you that before buying the game, though. Playing with mouse/keyboard or a gamepad is possibly, but not recommended. -They have lied MULTIPLE    I'm going to keep this really short and sweet, since most of the honest reviews touch on 99% of what I'd tell you, anyways.

    -You will most likely not enjoy this game if you don't have a flight stick/HOTAS setup of some sort. They don't tell you that before buying the game, though. Playing with mouse/keyboard or a gamepad is possibly, but not recommended.

    -They have lied MULTIPLE times before and after release concerning features and broken promises to early adopters and backers.

    -Game is basically a grind and running back'n'forth between stations and planets

    -Pretty game... but a whole lot of pretty EMPTINESS!

    -Users are shadow banned frequently from forums and game for minor or ZERO infractions at all. If you don't agree with them, you better keep it to yourself!

    -This game is a glorified space flight sim. The "MMO" part comes from the grind and lackluster controls/combat. They literally took the worst aspects of the MMO genre and slapped them on a flight sim to make it an "MMO". The combat could actually be good if the controls weren't so horrid, but since combat is so reliant on being able to control your craft... yeah...

    -You'll get hardcore zealots of this game attacking these points, especially the last one, but let's get one thing straight here - they've put hundreds of hours into this game and spent hundreds of dollars on flight sim peripherals, so OF COURSE they're going to defend it with their very lives!!! Yes, competent, engaging, and thrilling combat can be had in this game if you have the hours and the equipment... but do you really want to bother? I sure as Hell don't!    … Expand
  38. drysprocket
    Dec 20, 2014
    1
    The single most boring game I have ever played. There is potential in the shell that's here, but none of it has any meaning.

    Just another early access scam.
  39. Dave84er
    Dec 22, 2014
    2
    My advise if you're interested in the game is to come back in 6-12 months when there may be something approaching a full game to play, assuming the servers are still running.

    The game needs at least another 6 months in development, but as it's now officially released this is my review. Graphically it's fine, actually quite pretty with a slightly cartoon look to it. The problems come    My advise if you're interested in the game is to come back in 6-12 months when there may be something approaching a full game to play, assuming the servers are still running.

    The game needs at least another 6 months in development, but as it's now officially released this is my review. Graphically it's fine, actually quite pretty with a slightly cartoon look to it. The problems come with content, there's nowhere near enough for a game at launch, very little variation in missions, most are carry object A to location B. Destroy ship A at location B or go get object A and bring it back here. Pretty poor. Combat is OK, just OK.

    There are a few other things you can do such as exploration which literally means fly somewhere and point you ship at a planet/star whatever for a few seconds then sell the 'information' for a small amount of money. You can randomly attack people and see f they drop anything, this is apparently the piracy part of the game. That's pretty much it. Oh you can 'trade' as well but this is basic to say the least.

    Elite Dangerous is very buggy in general lacking enough content to justify been called a released game. After the offline debacle the developers are keen to emphasize the game is an MMO, but it lacks even the most basic elements of MMO play, apart from the 'grind'. Such a shame.    … Expand
  40. xtridence
    Feb 10, 2015
    1
    To be honest, the most of these reviews have been written even before the game has been released. Which makes them... somehow not valid.

    Because, compared to what has been promised and what has been brought on it's release, it's a complete disaster. The game lacks completely of a story. Yes, there is only a bit of what you might understand as a story. Empire holds slaves, all others are    To be honest, the most of these reviews have been written even before the game has been released. Which makes them... somehow not valid.

    Because, compared to what has been promised and what has been brought on it's release, it's a complete disaster. The game lacks completely of a story. Yes, there is only a bit of what you might understand as a story. Empire holds slaves, all others are basically against slaves. The Emperor is dying. The Federation are basically corporation moguls focused on capitalism - and all others? Well, Anarchists, Hardcore-Liberals or Communists. That's it.

    Bounty missions are mostly only against the currently most-highpowered ship, which - because of AI lack - can be taken out with the second smallest ship in the game. Might take up to 20 minutes, but you can take it out. Usually the cash you might get out of it is set between 150.000 CR and 250.000 CR.

    I can promise you, the amount of times you spend doing one and the single same shaped mission, over and over again, is what you can call actually a "combat interaction" - because, if you don't do bounty missions and just go on the hunt for "free-roam"-bounties, let me tell you, they aren't worth because they're just a huge waste of time.

    The game lacks completely of cooperative gameplay mechanics - even though it has one single cooperative feature at the moment: "Play with friends as private group". That doesn't means you see your friends highlighted somehow, no, but not only that, you oftenly aren't even able to follow them into an "USS", which is basically a separate instance where mobs are usually getting spawned in order to finish a mission. So, yes. Most of the times you might even face Weeding / Funeral Barges - really.

    And then, there's exploration. I mean, yes, there are 400 Million Stars. Yay. Even in 12.000 years they'll be not discovered all. But the most annoying thing is, you can explore up to 170.000 LY - and you just notice yourself, once you get back at base, that after 30 (REAL LIFE) days of exploring, that you'll have to bring up 8 hours to actually sell the exploration data, because it doesn't even offers any kind of batched selective / non-selective sales option.

    I'll not even start to talk about mining, because, I mean, we made it to the stars and are able to interdict, yet we're not able to interdict / use a tractor beam to gather small shards of minerals clustering out of the asteroid we're treating with our mining beam.

    So, what's the only job you'll really earn a lot of credits? Because, this game is totally focused on you getting credits. You'll end up as a trader. Or let's say in a better way: As a space trucker. Yes, you heard right - a space trucker. You'll truck up to 8 hours per day in order to gather up to XXX Millions. And you know what you do this for? Well, let me explain you this routine, you'll face 24/7 in this game:

    Get free ship, trade, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump ~...trade, buy new ship, trade, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump ~...trade, buy new ship, trade, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump ~... trade, buy new ship, trade, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump ~... trade... rinse and repeat.

    This is what you're going to do.

    The only reason I'm giving this game a 2 out of 10, is the fact they've implemented Oculus Rift to it's excellence. But that's it.    … Expand
  41. 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
  42. FAdamsXII
    Dec 22, 2014
    1
    This game represents everything wrong with kickstarter projects as it stands.

    I was an early backer and I am extremely disappointed with the final product especially after the development team promised us the moon and gave us an asteroid instead (figuratively and literally), though to be fair, I didn't keep up with project updates so perhaps I should not be surprised. I also think it    This game represents everything wrong with kickstarter projects as it stands.

    I was an early backer and I am extremely disappointed with the final product especially after the development team promised us the moon and gave us an asteroid instead (figuratively and literally), though to be fair, I didn't keep up with project updates so perhaps I should not be surprised.

    I also think it would also be very enlightening to see where the positive reviews are coming from geographically, I have a feeling that Europeans (and especially the British) will be more forgiving, same with gamers that remember the original Elite like myself. Which is probably while I'm so sorely disappointed, there was a ton of potential here and it was squandered.

    My biggest beef with this game is that offline play was promised, and now it will never happen, which is an indie developer taking the same kind of stance as Ubisoft and EA on always-online DRM. This is not a welcome development. I wish I could vote with my wallet but I already backed them, based on what turns out to be a major lie about offline play. I work in remote areas where there isn't always an internet connection and not being able to play a game that I backed while thinking and being told that it would fit my use case is not acceptable to me at all.

    Hopefully Star Citizen will not share the same issues and offer a deeper experience at the same time. As it stands, you can do everything in Elite: Dangerous within a few hours. That wouldn't normally be an issue in and of itself, if gameplay in those few hours is fun, challenging or engaging. This game is none of those things.

    In short, I'm disappointed and do not recommend that anyone purchase this game as it stands.    … Expand
  43. mulv81
    Mar 11, 2015
    2
    Euro Spaceship Simulator 2015 - Contrails in space! This is the most vapid entertainment product I have seen since the 1980's. This is labelled an MMO? Oh, please. Way to completely miss the mark.
  44. 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
  45. bukueOner
    Feb 13, 2015
    0
    This game was cool for the first few hours when all the planets and stars were new and exciting, but then you realize there's really not much to do. It felt like GTA: Vice City all over again. Tons of building everywhere and no doors open. It's all about this amazing universe that's meant to feel so alive, yet all you can do is scan, trade or kill. The instanced multiplayer is a joke.This game was cool for the first few hours when all the planets and stars were new and exciting, but then you realize there's really not much to do. It felt like GTA: Vice City all over again. Tons of building everywhere and no doors open. It's all about this amazing universe that's meant to feel so alive, yet all you can do is scan, trade or kill. The instanced multiplayer is a joke. There's basically no tools for players to create their own content. You can't even group yet. This game is a good time killer until something better comes out.… Expand
  46. 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.
  47. 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
  48. 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
  49. tf65
    Mar 10, 2015
    1
    Nice graphics and sounds, Everything else is poor. Lacking content, just a test beta version really, released way too soon. Wait a year or two or three.
  50. 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
  51. 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
  52. brasd
    Dec 21, 2014
    0
    Virtually unplayable. This game literally expects you to google how to play the game. It is literally impossible to do anything otherwise, unless you expect to search the entire universe for a specific form of cargo. And as of multiplayer? Well, there's no server browser, so in order to play with a friend, I am not joking, you have to restart the game over and over until you are in theVirtually unplayable. This game literally expects you to google how to play the game. It is literally impossible to do anything otherwise, unless you expect to search the entire universe for a specific form of cargo. And as of multiplayer? Well, there's no server browser, so in order to play with a friend, I am not joking, you have to restart the game over and over until you are in the same server. A broken, unplayable, mess.… Expand
  53. 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
  54. Much
    Dec 20, 2014
    0
    Not MMO as promised, more like MSO - massively single-player online. It is very lonely, boring and bad game. The graphics looks good, the gameplay sucks. But seriously, how hard can it be to make a nice graphic to a space sim when there is not much of a content, it's not a Skyrim.

    The game is broken by design and it will never have a good multi-player. You can forget about clan wars and    Not MMO as promised, more like MSO - massively single-player online. It is very lonely, boring and bad game. The graphics looks good, the gameplay sucks. But seriously, how hard can it be to make a nice graphic to a space sim when there is not much of a content, it's not a Skyrim.

    The game is broken by design and it will never have a good multi-player. You can forget about clan wars and pvp, since people can just switch to solo online play or be in a different instance. It does not even have co-op missions or any common multiplayer-features, e.g. chat.
    It is nothing like Freelancer ore EVE, the gameplay is similar to Truck Simulator.

    Broken promises, arrogant community consisted of zealots from 30 years old Elite game, bad game: 0/10. This game is so bad, I had to write my first review ever.    … Expand
  55. TekDragon
    Apr 5, 2015
    0
    Extremely disappointed in Frontier for **** on their Kickstarter backers with an inferior product. While others get to enjoy the game in the Steam environment they've cultivated for a decade or more, with an easy to access game library, friends list, and amazing community - those of us who backed have to manage our game through the website of some no-name UK company.

    Had I known this    Extremely disappointed in Frontier for **** on their Kickstarter backers with an inferior product. While others get to enjoy the game in the Steam environment they've cultivated for a decade or more, with an easy to access game library, friends list, and amazing community - those of us who backed have to manage our game through the website of some no-name UK company.

    Had I known this was how Frontier would treat their backers, I would never have supported Elite: Dangerous.    … Expand
  56. fu8276
    Apr 8, 2015
    0
    Hard to know where to start with this game. The few things that are good about it are overwhelmed by the bad. This game is nowhere near the state that deserves a full price release. It is not even fit for beta. In empty shell.
  57. King_Hrothgar
    Jul 4, 2015
    2
    I initially gave this a 6/10 when it was released as I thought it had a lot of potential despite shallow initial game play. I no longer believe it has any potential. The reason for this is the series of updates made to it over the last 7 months. The updates themselves aren't spectacularly bad, they just don't fix the core problem of shallow game play. The developers don't seem to realizeI initially gave this a 6/10 when it was released as I thought it had a lot of potential despite shallow initial game play. I no longer believe it has any potential. The reason for this is the series of updates made to it over the last 7 months. The updates themselves aren't spectacularly bad, they just don't fix the core problem of shallow game play. The developers don't seem to realize this is a problem. Going into specifics, here's the break down:

    Combat: The ships are slow and not very nimble. This makes combat fairly slow paced compared to other flying games. Whether you look at something arcade-ish such as War Thunder or the hardest of the hardcore, such as DCS or IL2, the game is just slow and overly easy. Most weapons are turreted, thus removing aiming and when combined with low speed and little maneuvering, there just isn't much to it. It isn't tactical or strategic either, so there really isn't anything going for it.

    Trading is equally simplified. The items a player can trade do not serve any in game purpose other than being trade goods. Trading useful items such as ships, modules and ammo is not possible except at a loss. Additionally, items cannot be traded between players.

    Exploration is basically just a timer when all is said and done. To to exploration, jump to a system that's "unexplored" and fire your scanner. 5 seconds later, point your ship at each object in the system one at a time for 10-30 seconds to get a detailed scan. That's it, the end.

    The various other professions aren't any deeper. The end result is a pretty game that could have been amazing if the developers hadn't been living under a rock for the last 30 years. But they were, and so it's ultimately just a cross between Asteroids and Pac Man. And to make it worse they decided the players are too dumb for that so they simplified it.    … Expand
  58. 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.
  59. lolgan
    Dec 16, 2014
    0
    Terrible customer support/service.

    This game started as a Kickstarter project. If you were one of the faithful that backed this game and Offline play was a deciding factor in backing it, then you probably experienced the amazingly shocking customer support/service. Basically the devs did a bait and switch and a few weeks before release they decide to let everyone know that Offline play    Terrible customer support/service.

    This game started as a Kickstarter project. If you were one of the faithful that backed this game and Offline play was a deciding factor in backing it, then you probably experienced the amazingly shocking customer support/service. Basically the devs did a bait and switch and a few weeks before release they decide to let everyone know that Offline play is too hard to implement. So basically this game is now purely an MMO. If you asked for a refund you most likely got denied or offered a small fraction of the money you gave in good faith. There is a solo mode, but an always on internet connection is required (DRM? you decide).

    There was also the revelation that they may implement in-game advertising, which reinforces the need for constantly being online. Also micro-transcations. Yeah that's right, buy your ships awesome skins! Awwww yeah! The stuff that matters (which could have been free btw. Oh wait, no stuff that. We gotta milk the customers right? heheheh). Actually since there is no monthly subscription fee I guess for this MMO to be viable they need to fund the servers through micro-transactions and in-game advertising.

    Judging by the way their customer support/service, you are going to hope you do not have issues with this MMO.    … Expand
  60. 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
  61. tummerjumper
    Dec 16, 2014
    1
    Not the game your looking for, which is such as shame. Combat etc is entertaining for a while and it looks pretty but sadly that's about it.

    Would have been great to have a true follow up to the great original but for whatever reason I feel they have taken too much on in making it an MMO. Not to mention the customer support from Frontier is dire, makes me wonder how they are going to    Not the game your looking for, which is such as shame. Combat etc is entertaining for a while and it looks pretty but sadly that's about it.

    Would have been great to have a true follow up to the great original but for whatever reason I feel they have taken too much on in making it an MMO.

    Not to mention the customer support from Frontier is dire, makes me wonder how they are going to handle all that goes along with an MMO.    … Expand
  62. hamburgermittes
    Dec 16, 2014
    1
    This game ditched an offline mode for an online only MMO variant. Fine. What is not fine is the multiplayer features are incomplete and mostly none existent. You cannot easily play with friends, and in the open play rarely come across other players. The net code is buggy and laggy and for an MMO an instance limit of less than 32 players is abysmal (though I've never seen more than 2-3 in aThis game ditched an offline mode for an online only MMO variant. Fine. What is not fine is the multiplayer features are incomplete and mostly none existent. You cannot easily play with friends, and in the open play rarely come across other players. The net code is buggy and laggy and for an MMO an instance limit of less than 32 players is abysmal (though I've never seen more than 2-3 in a single instance). The rest of the game is as equally empty in that features are bare bones and incomplete with incredibly repetitive and boring play. This game is not yet ready and requires many many months more development if it stands any chance of being a success. The fan boys are out in force today though so we'll see where this review ends up.… Expand
  63. 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
  64. Siggi
    Dec 16, 2014
    2
    The game claims a great deal of functionality that exists only by virtue of a player using his imagination. That's to say that the gameplay is, in reality, very shallow while pretending to be deep. In addition to that fact, while the game is incredibly pretty in the graphics department it is incredibly buggy in play with a lot of stuff working very poorly or not working at all.
    One might    The game claims a great deal of functionality that exists only by virtue of a player using his imagination. That's to say that the gameplay is, in reality, very shallow while pretending to be deep. In addition to that fact, while the game is incredibly pretty in the graphics department it is incredibly buggy in play with a lot of stuff working very poorly or not working at all.
    One might say FD can be trusted to fix all these issues given enough time after release, but after the despicable way they have handled the issue of refunds to those who are legally entitled to them I would not trust FD not to dump the game and walk away from it very soon after today. And on that basis I have to say this game should be avoided.    … Expand
  65. 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
  66. WhatsaUsername
    Mar 20, 2015
    0
    A very, very boring flight simulator disguised by pretty graphics to make people believe its a real game. At first you'll be impressed by how nice everything looks and how cool it is to fly around in your ship, but then you'll realise that theres absolutely nothing to do but grind the same 3 tasks over and over again ad nauseam.

    I'll say one thing for the developers, they've really    A very, very boring flight simulator disguised by pretty graphics to make people believe its a real game. At first you'll be impressed by how nice everything looks and how cool it is to fly around in your ship, but then you'll realise that theres absolutely nothing to do but grind the same 3 tasks over and over again ad nauseam.

    I'll say one thing for the developers, they've really captured the feeling of empty, lifeless space very well. Too well. I think its a stretch to call this a game - more like a proof of concept for something better (like maybe Star Citizen?).    … Expand
  67. 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
  68. 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
  69. 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
  70. martapp
    Dec 16, 2014
    1
    Game is launching with many of the promised features missing, including one that will never be present - offline play. Even if you are playing solo, you must be connected to their servers at all times. Multi-player interactions are minimal - no chat etc.
    Company support is non-existant for any one with payment issues. Graphics are very good, but the core game is very empty. Avoid    Game is launching with many of the promised features missing, including one that will never be present - offline play. Even if you are playing solo, you must be connected to their servers at all times. Multi-player interactions are minimal - no chat etc.
    Company support is non-existant for any one with payment issues. Graphics are very good, but the core game is very empty. Avoid completely if you have fond memories of the predecessors.    … Expand
  71. 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.
  72. tman123
    Mar 25, 2015
    2
    Well, as a Kickstarter backer i followed all the process from jan 14 to release in dec 14, now after playing since Gamma there are a couple of reasons why the game is NOT worth buying until its finished:

    - Not more than 1/3rd of the promised Features are implemented (Ships, Backgroundsimulation, Fuel-Types, NPC-Wings, Crew etc.) - The Features that are implemented are working on a very    Well, as a Kickstarter backer i followed all the process from jan 14 to release in dec 14, now after playing since Gamma there are a couple of reasons why the game is NOT worth buying until its finished:

    - Not more than 1/3rd of the promised Features are implemented (Ships, Backgroundsimulation, Fuel-Types, NPC-Wings, Crew etc.)
    - The Features that are implemented are working on a very very Basic Level - theres no depth in none of the 3 main parts (exploring, trading, fighting), and also no depth in any of the missions
    - theres absolutely no dynamic universe at the Moment. every single Action has to be done by developers which means theres no Chance to control things for the playerbase
    - the community, especially the english and german ones, are basically rude, the official english Forum is oversaturated by fanboys and the Moderators in both communities are extremely biased
    - bugs in almost every core-feature (Wings, Trading, Exploring)
    - cheaters everywhere (in open Play)

    Well - some plus´ses for the game: Great Sound (best part of the game, especially with cinema-Setup), good graphics and a very performant engine. Players are leaving the game and thats not a good sign.

    Just check all the Newsletters from Frontier against the ingame Content. They are lying everywhere. Also the Support is a joke.

    Dont buy it until its done.

    This game Needs a year or two until its ready for the market.    … Expand
  73. zerobane
    Apr 4, 2015
    1
    An ocean with a depth of a puddle is probably the easiest way to sum it up...

    Spent another couple hours in game(as suggested); after writing the first review; decided to re-write. I do see the valid point that there is definitely a potential of a great game; its just not there yet. Still would not buy again, at least not until it undergoes a major overhaul. Unless you like playing    An ocean with a depth of a puddle is probably the easiest way to sum it up...

    Spent another couple hours in game(as suggested); after writing the first review; decided to re-write. I do see the valid point that there is definitely a potential of a great game; its just not there yet.

    Still would not buy again, at least not until it undergoes a major overhaul. Unless you like playing games with lots of grinding around a single objective; an open sandbox .

    Pro's
    1. Excellent graphics
    2. Decent controls; if a little frustrating at first
    3. Immense universe with endless possibility
    4. UI was awesome when I used my occulus rift with; one of the best OR experiences yet.
    5. Good support for hotas setup

    Cons:
    1. Complete lack of content is stunning
    2. missions are tedious and boring; rinse and repeat. Seems like they are 3 or 4 templates they just re-use over and over again. The term; doing a grind comes to mind.
    3. It takes hours and many youtube vidoes to get the basic mechanics down. Even to fly a simple mission and make it back.
    4. Game has 0 soul; looks like the only reason to do anything is to get more money and a bigger ship.
    5. Shallow and boring; there is just not much to do at this point.
    6. The galaxy feels empty; 0 human interaction; just lost and alone as you start your adventure. (system wide comms or alliance chat would go a long way)
    7. mission design and implementation feels very demo'y with a bare minimum scaffolding buried under there UI's.
    8. Many of the UI's are very unintuitive; need to constantly look-up command via keyboard map or youtube; VERY simple visual cue's on UI would fix all of this.

    Advice to DEVs; stop everything and start developing story, characters and content! And most important; a decent intro/tutorial with some story!

    Overall it feels like a great blank canvas; just waiting for a masterpiece. The real question is will it ever get there...

    Too many of these games just keep making more ships, bigger and badder weapons and better game engines; while never focusing any of the sprints on metas or story.    … Expand
  74. sfajardo
    Mar 5, 2015
    2
    Just read the most helpful posts, they said everything, stay away of this game. They're now developing a xbox one version, yet, the PC version is incomplete and full of bugs.
  75. 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
  76. Vanzer0902
    Jun 4, 2021
    1
    Предзаказал odyssey
    @
    Полетел с другом в корабле в другую систему в роли пассажира @ При гиперпрыжке друган пропал из кресла пилота, бесконечная загрузка @ Перезашёл @ Я вишу в скафандре посреди космопорта! @ Меня сбили другим кораблём, чел который это сделал был уничтожен станцией @ Разрабы выпустили багофикс (в их понимании багофикс - это добавить новые баги не убрав старые)    Предзаказал odyssey
    @
    Полетел с другом в корабле в другую систему в роли пассажира
    @
    При гиперпрыжке друган пропал из кресла пилота, бесконечная загрузка
    @
    Перезашёл
    @
    Я вишу в скафандре посреди космопорта!
    @
    Меня сбили другим кораблём, чел который это сделал был уничтожен станцией
    @
    Разрабы выпустили багофикс (в их понимании багофикс - это добавить новые баги не убрав старые)
    @
    Лечу в другую систему сдавать груз
    @
    В прицеле вместо станции выбирается "след крыла другого чела"
    @
    Пока переключал в цель станцию пролетел её
    @
    Залетаю на станцию, чтобы сдать груз квестодателю
    @
    Ехидная игра говорит, что груза нет (хотя я точно его купил)
    @
    В грузовом отсеке пусто
    @
    Лечу обратно, не могу ничего купить, так как трюм полон
    @
    Призывая Бога императора жму "4", грузовой отсек полон
    @
    Но есть плюсы, мне не нужна дозаправка, чтобы долететь до квестодателя
    @
    Обновление получает 146 багов из 10

    P.S.
    Я ПОКУПАЛ ПРЕДЗАКАЗ, А НЕ ОТКРЫТУЮ АЛЬФУ!    … Expand
  77. 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
  78. 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
  79. lucaslucas27
    Nov 27, 2020
    0
    Muito ruim, o jogo ja estressa a pessoa no launcher mal feito.. preferi nem perder meu tempo
  80. sofoxee
    Sep 5, 2020
    0
    beatifull grind simulator, devs cant do dynamic economy so they are nerfing evrything what you can use to make fast money, and this is problem because ships are realy expensive
  81. 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
  82. Delling
    Feb 15, 2016
    1
    You'll love this game... for the first month. The flight model is very good, combat is fun.
    Unforunately, the game is also very boring.
    Combat: space combat is fun; unfortunately, Frontier Developments found nothing better to propose you than go to the combat zone, pick your faction, start killings things. Over, and over, again. Oh, wait, there is also a twist, resource extration    You'll love this game... for the first month. The flight model is very good, combat is fun.
    Unforunately, the game is also very boring.

    Combat: space combat is fun; unfortunately, Frontier Developments found nothing better to propose you than go to the combat zone, pick your faction, start killings things. Over, and over, again. Oh, wait, there is also a twist, resource extration zones! It works this way: go to the resource extraction site, target a ship, if it's a miner leave him alone, if it's wanted shoot him. Over, and over, and over again.

    Trading: go to station 1. pick up stuff. go to station 2. sell stuff. buy stuff. go to station 1. sell stuff. buy stuff. What happens while you travel from station 1 to station 2? Nothing. You simply watch the very same hyperjump animation again, and again, and again. And forget any autopilot feature, the game designers want you to do something trivial roughly each 30 seconds to make sure your ship goes where it's supposed to go. An ancient chiniese torture, actually.

    Exploration: you point your ship towards an unexplored planet or star, wait a few seconds, and the planet is now explored. How exiting. Now you turn your ship's nose towards the next planet, wait roughly a minute to reach it, wait a few seconds, great, you've explored it too. Repeat until you start to sing that old Nirvana song "i hate myself i want to die".

    Long story short: you'll love it for the first weeks. Then you'll start to grow bored. You'll keep clinging to hope the devs will turn it into something interesting for another few weeks. Then you'll realize this game will be finished only when star citizen will be released: they just began to take your money earlier.    … Expand
  83. 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
  84. Arlet
    Oct 6, 2015
    2
    In the state it is in I can not recommend it, neither can I recommend it for the future due to the planned dlc they have in store. This game costs $60 and feels like it has $30 worth of content. I bought the game thinking they would provide free updates in the future but that doesn't seem to be the case. The only thing I can say positive about this game is that it really knows how to getIn the state it is in I can not recommend it, neither can I recommend it for the future due to the planned dlc they have in store. This game costs $60 and feels like it has $30 worth of content. I bought the game thinking they would provide free updates in the future but that doesn't seem to be the case. The only thing I can say positive about this game is that it really knows how to get the atmosphere of outer space right; Empty, both in setting and content.… Expand
  85. 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
  86. Landy77
    Oct 2, 2015
    0
    This is a space sim with plane physics. There are lots of locations to travel to, but nothing is there once you arrive. Lots of nothingness. You can't have an unlimited galaxy with a limited player base. You end up being solo playing a multiplayer game.
  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. Germane_Riposte
    May 31, 2016
    2
    Do be extremely careful before you decide to hand money over for this one. There are several charges you can level against this game at of this time:

    First it is very grind based: you will have to grind intensely for basically everything wherever it be credits, rank or faction standing, even introducing tiers in the grind, where you can grind up to get the opportunity to spend more time    Do be extremely careful before you decide to hand money over for this one. There are several charges you can level against this game at of this time:

    First it is very grind based: you will have to grind intensely for basically everything wherever it be credits, rank or faction standing, even introducing tiers in the grind, where you can grind up to get the opportunity to spend more time grinding. A continuous series of updates made it clear that this is the direction the developers wish to take the game, with every major update liable to introduce significant grind (Power Play update and Engineer update come to mind). You may be looking at a time investment of 500+ hrs to get to the top tier ships.

    QA doesn't seem to be top priority with Frontier either, you may end up looking at a fair number of bugs you'll have to deal with and/or work around. Ranging from the ships UI locking up and text segments being corrupted to missions ending up as unfinishable. The latter especially compounds badly with the above mentioned grind.

    Content is very, very generic, you'll be looking at the same two station interiors a lot. You'll be looking at the same station exteriors a lot too, but there is a tad bit more variation there, all factions use the same templates, so this one suffers from the EVE syndrome in that regard: Everywhere in the universe everything looks the same; well, not quite, they may use different heraldic devices on their station, and slightly different shade of grey for their paint jobs.
    Planet surfaces may hold your attention for at least a while (if you opt in for horizons), there's more randomness there, though not necessarily more to do.
    Do not look for engaging story- or questlines here, at the time of this writing, they do not exist, and I wouldn't expect any being added for the lifetime of the product.

    Be also aware that Frontier may opt to make very drastic changes to the way combat and gameplay elements work. We are talking about sailing serenely through space one day and getting one-shotted in the same space post update. Considering a total ship loss may set you back a couple of hours grinding you may not be too fond of that.

    There are no things like an ingame auction house/player market, there is no banking or storage space on stations you can use whatsoever. To trade with another player you'd need to exchange the goods in space by jettisoning them and scooping them up, and no, you can't even transfer ingame funds to anyone else, such is life in the fictional universe of the future.

    There are no structures you can place or build, neither in space nor planet side.

    There is a crafting of sorts which you can conduct at a handful of stations distributed around space with the help of the local engineer. Of course you'll first have to grind faction with said engineer. After that you can let him/her have you build upgrades for your ship, as long as you can supply the rare loot and tools for the job, finding those is depending on your luck with the RNG. You'll have a tough time trading any you find with other players (see above). Also you'll have to carry them with you at all times, since you can't store them anywhere but on your ship (see also above).
    Having the engineer actually build you your upgrade, well, that's the next round of RNG for you. I think you can see where this is going.

    I'd strongly advise against buying into Elite Dangerous.

    On a positive note, I found the CS is fairly responsive, at least as far as tickets you file are concerned.    … Expand
  89. poppyzzz
    Mar 25, 2016
    0
    First of all I would like to say I like this game what I don't like is them charging us more money for Horizons when the base game is still nowhere near complete. Currently life in ED revolves around grinding credits for a better ship and grinding ranks to be able to fly some of the bigger ships. Horizons was so poor I was debating asking for a refund I mean yes you can land on planets butFirst of all I would like to say I like this game what I don't like is them charging us more money for Horizons when the base game is still nowhere near complete. Currently life in ED revolves around grinding credits for a better ship and grinding ranks to be able to fly some of the bigger ships. Horizons was so poor I was debating asking for a refund I mean yes you can land on planets but that's it. You also can only land on planets with no atmosphere and they usually are just baron rocky places with nothing to do except drive across with your moon buggy.There are new surface missions but they pay so little it's not worth doing them,if the surface missions were interesting then fine but they are not they just plain boaring.I could go on here all day but I won't,my advice is wait until they have fixed the game or wait for Star Citizen.… Expand
  90. 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
  91. Jolt51
    Oct 11, 2015
    1
    So, I bought the game, a Joystick, and a new keyboard to play this game. Not being new to MMO's I expected to be able to get out of the beginning area once I got familiar with the game. Not so. Once I figured out from trial and error how to manually maneuver the ship (Not intuitive at all), I started to explore and almost imediately got blown up by a ship much more advanced than me. SecondSo, I bought the game, a Joystick, and a new keyboard to play this game. Not being new to MMO's I expected to be able to get out of the beginning area once I got familiar with the game. Not so. Once I figured out from trial and error how to manually maneuver the ship (Not intuitive at all), I started to explore and almost imediately got blown up by a ship much more advanced than me. Second try the same thing happened. Griefers are part of any MMO but this was really pathetic. Almost as bad as EVE Online. But in Eve there are consequences for it. After spending 2 days at this I have given up. Not fun at all if you ask me.… Expand
  92. meme1337
    Jul 14, 2015
    0
    This game is empty.
    It is one of the most boring grind I ever endured in a game.
    AI it's really bad, community is toxic (especially on the official forums), there is no way to meet and befriend people, unless relying on external tools like websites or communities on reddit. The game mechanics are broken and flawed due to the fact that developers tried to run with the hare and hunt with    This game is empty.
    It is one of the most boring grind I ever endured in a game.
    AI it's really bad, community is toxic (especially on the official forums), there is no way to meet and befriend people, unless relying on external tools like websites or communities on reddit.
    The game mechanics are broken and flawed due to the fact that developers tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds: they want pseudo-offline capabilities but they are intertwined with the multiplayer mechanics, leading to a mess.
    Last update was a joke and the next one, which is instanced CQC, will be even more silly.
    Hugely disappointed.    … Expand
  93. Pendra
    Jun 26, 2015
    1
    This "game" can be considered a scam and David Braben acts like a conman. During the kickstarter campaign, he promised Earth and Heaven for the money. Nice videos and images were created. The game looked really good.

    Then the no single player incident happened. DB first refused to give the money back for those who pledged for a DRM free single player game. The case almost went to court.    This "game" can be considered a scam and David Braben acts like a conman. During the kickstarter campaign, he promised Earth and Heaven for the money. Nice videos and images were created. The game looked really good.

    Then the no single player incident happened. DB first refused to give the money back for those who pledged for a DRM free single player game. The case almost went to court.
    Then the "Release" happened. The game was released in a pre-alpha state to secure the kickstarter funds.
    When people pointed out that the game is hollow, the official reaction was: "Use your imaginations!"
    This reaction after you shelled out the 60+ USD, is just ********.
    The so called "Background simulation" (The reason they added DRM) is completely and utterly broken.
    There is no economy.
    The galaxy is static and boring. All you can find are differently colored balls in space. There is no meaningful exploration.
    You can't "build" anything in this so called "sandbox". The ship updates are cookie cutter.
    The missions are meaningless fetch and kill quests. There is no themepark ride.

    I put 100+ hours into it to make sure I didn't miss anything. Stay away from it. The company is amateurish and dishonest. All you get is lip service and tease/hype. The "game" is all flash, no substance.

    If you want a good space game, play X3TC, Kerbal space program or Space engine    … Expand
  94. 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.
  95. 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
  96. loaked
    Aug 16, 2016
    0
    Don't waste your time or money on this one. Its comical in the amount of pointless and mind numbing grinding it takes to get anywhere in the game. When you do finally get some traction going and get a mission that might actually pay you some descent money, enemy ships get sent after you that you can even come close to trying to take down. The ending result is your drained of the last 2Don't waste your time or money on this one. Its comical in the amount of pointless and mind numbing grinding it takes to get anywhere in the game. When you do finally get some traction going and get a mission that might actually pay you some descent money, enemy ships get sent after you that you can even come close to trying to take down. The ending result is your drained of the last 2 hours of money you grinded to get. I found myself in this loop of gaining money and fame, then once I was ahead enemy ships where sent against me that I was no match for. How so many people still play this game I will never understand, but take advice from me and the thousands of other people(look at the reviews on steam) and skip this game!… Expand
  97. 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
  98. Nthy
    Sep 18, 2015
    0
    I give this a zero because it alludes nicely to the emptiness of the Elite Dangerous universe. I was waiting patiently for them to add some actual content to the game. Something interesting and non-grindy would be nice. Then to my surprise they launched it! Kicked it out the door in an unfinished state, still with nothing interesting to do and core gameplay that is needlessy grindy inI give this a zero because it alludes nicely to the emptiness of the Elite Dangerous universe. I was waiting patiently for them to add some actual content to the game. Something interesting and non-grindy would be nice. Then to my surprise they launched it! Kicked it out the door in an unfinished state, still with nothing interesting to do and core gameplay that is needlessy grindy in every way imaginable.

    For a while after, I harbored the delusion that they would add something fun to do in a future patch. The day they released news their upcoming paid expansion featuring planetary landing I knew that the dream was dead. There is nothing non-grindy to do in Elite Dangerous, and there never will be; because the developer thinks the game is complete. Complete enough that they've started selling expansions! What a farce. But don't worry... because for only sixty US dollars you can land on planets and be as bored on the surface of a planet as you were in space!    … Expand
  99. Snai2k
    Jul 8, 2015
    0
    Really dissapointment unfinished buggy game with a dull gameplay. I've backed the Kickstarter campaign and played it back in 80s and what worked back then should not be in in 21st century, if you think the space era will look anything like that then humanity is doomed. Check videos if you even consider to buy it.
  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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