Everyone has a fighting chance
Entering Elite: Dangerous as a new commander can be a daunting experience, but Frontier has plans for that. On April 23rd, a new Beginners’ Zone will debut that is considered a training ground of sorts for those just joining up. It can only be accessed by new pilots “until they earn their first Combat, Trade or Exploration rank”. Missions will be handed out “that even the smallest of Sidewinders can complete”.
Elite Dangerous will be getting another expansion, the third in the game’s history, but not until late 2020. Pilots need not despair, however, as there will be smaller updates throughout the time between now and then. The expansion is considered “the next major era of Elite” and that it “will be a defining moment in the history of the game. Developers further write that it will be the biggest update since launch in 2014.
Two new ships are coming to Elite: Dangerous as part of Beyond – Chapter 4. In a new trailer, both the high-end Mamba and the Krait Phantom are revealed. Both are, according to devs, based on an unreleased racing prototype. “The Mamba brings blistering speed combined with huge firepower”. “The Krait Mk II is a lighter, faster ship that features a spacious cargo hold and relatively generous quantity of hardpoints”.
Frontier has announced that the beta for Elite Dangerous: Beyond – Chapter 4 is set to take off beginning October 30th. Once the initial beta launches, more content will be rolled out over the weeks following. Week One will begin with visual improvements, exploration changes, background simulation changes and new scenarios. Week Two will feature mining changes and squadrons. Week Three will be anchored by new ships and the beta will come to a close on Week Four.
Frontier has announced that Beyond: Chapter 2 has launched for Elite: Dangerous. This is a free update to all players and includes two new ships (Krait MK II and the Alliance Challenger) along with new Wing Missions, installation interactions, new weapons and technology and new places to explore.
Starting today, Elite: Dangerous players will enjoy a “booming bank holiday” with increased trading profits and engineers will find reduced material costs when using engineering recipes.
The Elite: Dangerous site has been updated with a brief note to announce that the game will no longer be supported on Mac gaming systems after the release of the Q4 update. Developers wrote, “Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to bring Elite Dangerous Horizons to Mac since launch due to technical barriers.”
Since the announcement earlier this week of the next season of Elite: Dangerous, the Frontier team took to the airwaves in a pair of live stream events to introduce players to Beyond: Chapter One. The team took it one step further and provided both a video replay of the events as well as a written recap for each on Steam.
If you’re a PC or Mac player of Elite: Dangerous, you will definitely want pencil in time to play starting January 25th. Beyond: Chapter One will enter open beta and will allow you to take part in Wing Missions, check out the new graphics upgrades and the Galnet Audio as well as see new trade data. This is the first of season three’s updates.
Elite Dangerous: Horizons 2.4 has arrived. Called “The Return”, the new content brings back an iconic enemy from the earliest days of Elite: Dangerous. The Thargoids is humanity’s dreaded foe and the new update with bring a wealth of lore and story to the game as commanders take the fight to the modern age. Over the coming months, players will have a chance to fight the Thargoid menace as well as work on tactics and technology better suited to taking them out.