Elite: Dangerous

lite: Dangerous is a game that combines space exploration, combat and trading in a futuristic setting. It is the fourth game in the Elite series and the sequel to the 1995 Frontier: First Encounters. It is set in an open world based on the real Milky Way and it is persistent in the way that it started in the year 3300 when it was launched in 2014 and time runs in sync with ours. As in the previous games the player starts with a small ship and a limited amount of ‘credits’ and needs to make a name by exploring an enormous galaxy said to contain 400 billion star systems. There are both noble and infamous paths to follow with many different types of jobs involving bounty hunting, exploring, fighting, mining, piracy, smuggling or trading, but always with the goal of acquiring capital to invest in larger ships, advanced equipment and cargo bays to store goods. There is a laws and crime system in place tied to a reputation. The game has fines and bounties, but players can also buy insurance.

While the single-player of the previous games remains, there is an important persistent element as the choices of the different players across their own games impact the larger open-ended narrative. The game also needs a constant internet connections as the economy is based on the global player action by buying or selling resources and how the three factions (Alliance, Empire and Federation) interact through Power Play: galaxy-wide faction-based challenges. There are cycles in place that are re-calculated every week based on extensive systems involving financial, political and social weight that can be directly influenced by players, for instance by pledging to or withdrawing support from powers. Expansion on the map can be achieved in the same way. A Solo mode can be played to never encounter a human player, but there is also real multiplayer, either the Open Play mode as a large free-for-all or working cooperatively, or the Private mode to only play with a select number of friends. During space travel players encounter stars, planets, moons, black holes and asteroid fields.

Space flight is a simulation in the sense that there are a lot of controls to master and interpreting the HUD with afterburner, cargo, communications, compass, docking, fuel, heat, hull, landing gear, lasers, power, scanning, shields, speed, transactions etc. Travelling is done through standard space flight, hyperspace jumps or super cruise. During fights many types of manoeuvres are supporting through engine boosts, pitch, roll, throttle, thrust and yaw. Ships are customized through large amount of modules such as drives, fuel scoop, fuel tank, heat sink launcher, life support, power distributor, power plant, sensors, shield generator, weapons etc.