Elite: Dangerous, the great big expansive space sim has one notable advantage over Star Citizen: It’s actually out, playable for people who love the idea of flying through space right now. And soon, it’ll even have planetary landings, which comes as the first part of the newly announced Horizons season on expansion content.
Yes, you’ll soon be able to land on planets, and pilot a surface vehicle as you look for stuff on these new worlds.
Going down to the surfaces of planets was a key part of my dreams of exploration,” says Frontier’s David Braben “and soon we’ll realise that dream in Elite Dangerous.”
“We’re beginning with airless, rocky worlds – places where a great deal of new gameplay can take place. These are planet-sized sandbox environments, with all sorts of things to discover hidden on them. You’ll find surface starports, crashed ships, mineral deposits, hidden bases and more.
These worlds are gigantic, and – like the open galaxy – you’ll be able to go anywhere. You’ll be able to fly over the surface in low orbit and choose your spot to land, you’ll be able to venture out in your Surface Recon Vehicle and hurtle across the surface at high speed. You’ll be able to sneak around or go in all guns blazing. The nimble SRV is tiny compared to your ship, and is virtually invisible on a long range scanner – ship-based weapons will find it very hard to hold a lock on them, but airborne and ground-based players can explore the same worlds together, so watch the skies!”
It goes up for pre-order today. Here’s a trailer.
Elite Dangerous: Horizons launches this Holiday. The first expansion, Planetary Landings introduces players to planet surfaces and the first all-new Surface Recon Vehicle (SRV) the ‘Scarab’. Scanning airless planets and moons brings new gameplay as players detect signals, crashed ships, mineral deposits, outposts and fortresses. Alone or with friends players will explore, mine and engage hostile forces as they attempt to infiltrate strongholds guarding valuable rewards. Players will explore new worlds, coasting over mountaintops, diving into canyons, landing on the surface and rolling out onto the surface in your SRV, all without loading times or breaks in gameplay.
Elite Dangerous: Horizons will continue to introduce new features and gameplay as the season continues into 2016, enriching the Elite Dangerous experience with new activities and new ways to play. Elite Dangerous: Horizons includes all Elite Dangerous content to date, and all players will continue to fly together in the same galaxy. Existing Elite Dangerous players receive a £10 loyalty discount off the price of Elite Dangerous: Horizons, retaining their progress and unlocking the exclusive ‘Cobra Mk IV’ in-game spacecraft.
Last Updated: August 5, 2015
Alien Emperor Trevor
August 6, 2015 at 07:43
Now that does sound cool.
Captain JJ Fantasticus
August 6, 2015 at 08:01
Not what she said.
Alien Emperor Trevor
August 6, 2015 at 08:09
She didn’t say anything. #foreverSP
Captain JJ Fantasticus
August 6, 2015 at 08:11
LOL
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:14
This looks great! time to dust off my joystick again.
Captain JJ Fantasticus
August 6, 2015 at 08:26
Alien Emperor knows all about that ;P
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:28
#foreverSP here as well xD
Alien Emperor Trevor
August 6, 2015 at 08:38
Technically I don’t. 🙁
The Sten
August 6, 2015 at 09:22
…
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:30
R800 for this expansion… o boy
Aries
August 6, 2015 at 08:32
Still want this game, waiting for a nice sale, and this is asking for a decent joystick
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:34
It go’s on sale regularly. And yes you do need a HOTAS for this to be awesome 😛
Aries
August 6, 2015 at 08:36
I never saw really, but a 25% sale not worth it for me, the base game looks beautiful but has little to offer so far
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:39
Yea base game is kind of empty. The grinding is boring as heck but once you climb into your new Imperial Clipper everything becomes worth it xD
Aries
August 6, 2015 at 08:41
I know, being watching cTop on youtube for a while now, though I wouldnt mind just exploring with no purpose
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:43
Sometimes I just throw a brandy, put on some good music, climb in the ASP and just planet hop all night looking at what strange things I can find.
BacchusZA
August 6, 2015 at 10:57
Nah, “need” isn’t really true, & you can play quite successfully with mouse & keyboard, or an XBox controller.
“Want”, though? Yeah, it’s fantastic with a decent HOTAS, especially if you have some kind of head-tracking, such as a TrackIR. And it’s evidently *the* game to show off what something like an Oculus Rift can do.
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 08:35
The current price for the DLC includes the base game. So it’s probably as good a time to buy it now. Remember that the Frontier Stand-alone launcher gets updated a lot faster than the steam copy, so it is a good idea to buy directly from them for that reason.
Other wise I do not really see the game getting any cheaper, as it seems like they will be releasing expansions every year for the next 9 years.
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:37
Thanks for the info, gonna have look into this 😛
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 08:39
No problem, if you have any more questions, just ask!
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:40
Haven’t seen you in a while Axon 🙂 good to see you again.
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 08:46
Hah, thanks. I have not been able to log in for a while. So kind of just gave up. But now that I have installed win10 it all seems to be working again.
Aries
August 6, 2015 at 08:38
Damn, will check, got their site bookmarked, going to check up on this now
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 08:39
Cool cool, if you have any other questions then just ask. I’d be glad to add some more commanders to the local scene.
Aries
August 6, 2015 at 08:41
Hows to latency to the servers for us? Hate playing on international servers
Aries
August 6, 2015 at 08:44
Just to clear up quick, if I buy Horizons just that from the frontier store do I get the base game with?
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 08:49
Yes you do get the base game with it. Check the store for more details on that. Regarding latency, in busy areas such as conflict zones the latency seems to hold up surprisingly well. I have not had an issue yet where latency caused me problems. It’s not like there’s really that much happening on screen, even when in a dogfight. I’ve tested it on both a 2mbps line and a 4mbps line and there was no difference in latency or performance. So that’s either a good sign or a mediocre sign.
Either way they are working on the networking side of things. A patch got released yesterday that addressed a couple of network issues.
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:52
Touch wood, I have never experienced a lot of lag in this game, only flew into a few planets in super cruise, but that was due to my negligence for not slowing down at a constant pace.
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 08:57
Can you imagine Framing into a planet when you have the expansion…. Maybe your ship will become one of those derelict ships you can salvage from later on. That would be quite nice. A way for you to maybe restore all the planets you scanned.
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 09:01
The one thing I would love to see in this game is having like a guild/squad ship ( http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Majestic_Class_Interdictor ) where you can dock and move about with other players.
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 09:05
I guess it could be possible, the same way as the plan for boarding enemy ships or using the wings function to fly bigger ships with friends.
Aries
August 6, 2015 at 08:53
ok, shot, though they dont say on the store if you get the base game with or not, but might just get the base so long
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 08:55
You can ask their support if you are unsure. I would actually recommend you ask them. I wish you the best of luck, and hopefully you will join us soon! We are always looking for more wings.
Axon1988
August 6, 2015 at 08:34
Yay I get it for free! If you buy the Horizons DLC now, you also get the base game with it. So it’s not a bad price for the scale this game has.
Ottokie
August 6, 2015 at 08:57
I wonder how the £10 discount will work if you bought the game on steam.