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- Frontier Developments
Elite: Dangerous
Released On: Dec 16, 2014
6.7
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 1,945 User Ratings
6.7
60% Positive
1169 Ratings
1169 Ratings
11% Mixed
218 Ratings
218 Ratings
29% Negative
558 Ratings
558 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 1,945 User Ratings
6.7
60% Positive
1169 Ratings
1169 Ratings
11% Mixed
218 Ratings
218 Ratings
29% Negative
558 Ratings
558 Ratings
For its genre it was 8/10, but with the latest update it became 10/10. First up, there is no better and more immersive space sim. Secondary, the devs notice issues in a 10 year old game that barely makes any more money and fix them, while still providing new content. Having access to a few mediocre starter ships to check out different activities after hundreds of hours in exploration is even better. I'm glad to support the project by having fun.
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PC
Still a wonderful space sim game in 2023. Great RPG elements. You can play as a miner, trader, bounty hunter, bus driver. The seamless simulation of the galaxy still amazes me. Game of all times.
Miles ahead than the game the Bing AI company and Todd Howard have released upon us this year.
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PC
Just best space sim ever
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PC
Elite: Dangerous is a space sim that allows you to trade, explore, or engage in combat as you see fit and make progress (I won't exactly say "meaningful" progress) in any or all of the three. There are about 38 ships to choose from that vary by cost, and in some cases, other unlock requirements and allow a lot of customizability. Some ships are more suited to exploration, some to trading, and others to combat, while still others are great (but not the best) at all three. Due to the variety of tasks that you can perform, the game can get quite addictive as you spend "just one more hour" to try something else.
While the game has a lot of breadth, it doesn't have a whole lot of depth. There isn't much of a story to speak of (you'll have to dig for the lore in the form of text or audio logs) and definitely no campaign mode. The game is a sandbox where the galaxy is your playground and you make of it what you will. This in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, the learning curve is steep. Very little is explained in-game and you'll find yourself heading to Google or YouTube quite often in an attempt to figure things out.
You can either play in Open with other players or Solo, and herein lies the biggest drawback. Once you leave the starter areas, you'll have players in fully decked out ships that are bent on your destruction just for the fun of it. There is no Open PVE server. If you wanna play with others, be prepared to get ganked by experienced players. If you play Solo, you won't have to deal with that annoyance, but you'll be alone. The alternative is to join a Private Group where only you and other like-minded players can have fun, but then the game doesn't feel like a true MMO. If you like the idea of open PVP with ganking, the game may work for you, but these days, you'll still need a fully "engineered" ship. To put it simply, Engineering is the process of upgrading various aspects of your ship to make it a lot more powerful than it is by default. This process is a tremendous grind and not fun at all. It is tedious and will take you a long time. Die-hard fans will attempt to shoot me down for this, but that's no concern of mine. It is what it is, and as a potential new player considering purchasing this game, you deserve to know the facts.
In my opinion, an Open PVE server will solve this problem and make the game a lot more playable, perhaps even increasing the game's fanbase as more people get to cooperate and socialize with others. Until then, the game is going to remain very restricted. A lot of players did return to try out Fleet Carriers, which are the newest addition. But there's no guarantee that most of them will actually stay once the novelty wears off. So in the end, is the game worth it? It definitely has potential. But Engineering is mind-numbing and Open PVP is a substantial deterrent for many. Those are good reasons not to waste your money.
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PC
Critics are right about the repetition and tedium, and supporters are right about it being the best space sim currently on the market. What both need to realize is that this is the ultimate Early Access game. In another few years, it will be a great game, but for now, it needs a huge "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" sign on everything, and it's definitely not worth paying $60 for unless you love the concept of living through and supporting every baby step of development. I've played more than 200 hours, so enjoy it, but for most people I'd say save your money until this is a full game, in another three years or so.
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PC
In 2021 Elite Dangerous is for you if:
1) you have no job, no hobby and no life, willing to travel to almost every mission above 10 real-time min;
2) you like to grind, grind and more grind;
3) you can ignore annoying bugs, annoying rules, repetitive and boring gameplay;
4) you are ready to spend more time googling things than actually playing, because this game is THE MOST unintuitive and unnecessarily complicated one I've ever played with no useful tutorial whatsoever;
5) you are ok with no goal in the game;
6) you like meditative games;
7) you like realistic cosmos and starships.
Advice: just go play No Man's Sky instead.
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PC
Don't look at Elite Dangerous as a game. It isn't. Elite Dangerous is a piece of software that wants to be Flight Simulator, Trains Simulator, a space combat simulator, and an MMO, all in one. Does it succeed? In my opinion, no.
Here's the good stuff you can look forward to:
► A space game where you can choose to play Solo, with a Private Group (friends only), or Open (open online multiplayer with instanced maps holding a set number of players at a time). Options!
► A space game where you can choose between the space-game trifecta of Combatant/Trader/Explorer or incorporate all three into your play style. Options!
► A space game where you can customize the loadout of your spaceship with equipment ranging from a dozen different types of weapons, armors, internal components for offense, defense, bounty hunting, passenger carrying, cargo hauling, planet exploring, etcetera. Options!
► A space game where you can fly across a huge, seemingly limitless galaxy, where every dot on your Galaxy Map (and there's millions of them) represents a sector of space you can travel to and explore, possibly for the very first time that anyone has ever gone there...! Options!
► A space game with fairly solid graphics, a cool premise, a good simulato-yet-action-focused-yet-exploration-capable feel to it. Especially if you have a good flight control system/joystick, TrackIR, or VR, you'll probably want to buy this just to take advantage of your hardware.
Here's the bad stuff you can look forward to:
• Grinding. If you want ranks, money, or to simply explore, prepare to spend months grinding. To get satisfaction from traveling and doing what you want to do, it's going to require money and ranks, so you'll have to grind. This is where MMO syndrome comes in: the infamous "Engineers" system requires you to find components found RNG about the universe, which can take a long time. These Engineering goals are essential in making your ship perform with lower risk of dying due to unfair AI or players who have an Engineered ship and want you dead for some reason.
• AI with no personality that mostly sends text messages to you (very little voice dialogue/radio chatter) and cheats in combat, their level of cheating determined by their difficulty (AI are immune to certain weapons, techniques and strategies, have accuracy/damage that is disconnected to their ship's actual loadout). The lowest ranked AI will fly stupidly in box patterns without fighting back, while the highest ranked AI will pull J-turns, flank you, shoot you perfectly with 360 degree turreted weapons, and take out your subsystems with flawless accuracy. Cheap.
• No purpose or overall objective other than what you make for yourself. While there are more interesting missions other than "Kill/Trade/Explore", you might never experience them because you're too busy grinding to get a ship actually capable of doing those complex missions.
Limited depth & bugs:
• You can't land on planets unless you buy Horizons DLC; however, they're all slight variations of either a crater-marked orange moon, or a large, rugged and mountainous orange moon anyway
• Using Multi-Crew, you can jump into the passenger seat of another player's spaceship! But you'll experience lag issues, sudden disconnects, game-crashing errors, and a whole bunch of other bugs. You also can't walk around the ship, or wave to your friend, or anything other than giving the pilot player an extra pip to their power distribution and maybe taking over one of their fighters or turrets.
• You can land on space stations! But there's only about 6 different looking interiors in the game you'll see most often on average
• You can buy any ship you want, but customizing the ship's appearance is real-money microtransaction based: $10 from the third-party Frontier store, and only applies to that specific class of ship. This game's out-of-game store is horrendously expensive, and feels like it's one step short of introducing lootboxes and XP boosters due to the excessive grind.
I honestly like this game. But I literally don't have the time to play this game enough to gain enough money/ranks to do anything fun. I can't do combat/explore/trade for fear of my ship being destroyed and having to spend another 10 hours grinding for money. I can't participate in events because I haven't spent the 1,000 hours grinding to get an Engineered ship capable of not being destroyed. Everything I want to do relies upon grinding to get there, and the grinding itself gets very boring, very quickly.
The satisfaction from playing with my X52 Joystick, TrackIR, or VR, is worth only an hour or two at most, because afterwards the game goes from 'game' to 'chore' to 'second job'.
Do I recommend this game? Well, after doing the math, I have to say: "No, unless there's an incredible sale". This game is worth $30 at most, and that's counting cosmetic microtransactions.
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Summary The next game in the Elite series - a space epic with fully multi-player. Carve your own path through a rich gaming sandbox, set against a backdrop of raw anarchy, galactic powerplays and intrigue. Do whatever it takes to upgrade your ship’s hull, engines, weapons, defences, cargo hold; constantly improve your capabilities and influence ...
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- PC
- Xbox One
- PlayStation 4
Initial Release Date: Dec 16, 2014
Developer:
- Frontier Developments
Publisher: Frontier Developments
Genres: