With the effort going into it and the huge introductions being made to the established formula, it’s hard to argue with him. There has been uproar in online communities because of this pricing, with the simple fact being a fair few people believed the ability to land on planets would – and should – be a feature in the vanilla Elite: Dangerous.īut Braben is convinced this is the right approach for Horizons, offering it up as a premium selection of additions and expansions, not just one new feature. It will cost £40 for those who do not own Elite: Dangerous, and £30 at the pre-order stage for those who do own the first release.
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I’ve used the word ‘owners’ a couple of times up there, and the reason is this: Horizons is not a free set of add-ons. But while owners of Planetary Landings will be able to travel into an orbital cruise and explore the surface, those without will just be left in outer orbit, twiddling their thumbs.īack on the surface, though, Horizon owners will be able to land, fly around the surface, turn around and leave, remain in their wings (with other Horizon-owning players, of course) and generally play an incredible-sounding addition to an already impressive game.
They’re not bespoke, but then there are many millions of them … this way saves time, let’s say.Īll of the expansions for the Horizons season will be compatible across the board with all players, meaning you will still be able to form wings with other players to explore the universe together.
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But the description from series creator David Braben had everyone in the room beaming from ear to ear with excitement.Įach planet is modelled using a first principle system – what this means is their creation, their orbit, their tectonic plates, weather, geothermal activity and countless other elements are simulated to create every uninhabited planet (inhabited planets are still a no-go for the time being, but it’s coming).īasing procedural generation on such rigid, scientific formula – I was told – results in planets that are as accurate to the real thing as they can be, with all manner of scientific minds working behind the scenes with real world(/universe) data to create planets. I wasn’t privy to seeing exactly what things are like on planetary surfaces – apparently everything is working as planned and explained, it just needs to be textured before it’s shown off to the public. The first revealed, the Scarab, is a nippy six-wheeler able to fit inside most ships as an optional add-on. You won’t be jumping out of your spaceship straight on to terra firma, however – instead using a surface landing vehicle to navigate the procedurally simulated worlds. And as with the vanilla Elite: Dangerous release, it’s all going to be up to the player how they go about things.
In the Planetary Landings expansion, players will see a fair bit more than vast nothingness: as well as terrestrial bases and shipyards, there will be areas of interest to explore, loot to discover, mining to profit from and some overwhelmingly vast areas to explore. Whereas, for example, in Frontier: Elite 2 every planet with a solid surface could be landed on – in a 20-plus year old game – they were lacking in detail, essentially giant green, grey or red orbs with little action on the surface. While it might have seemed like this should have been a feature in the game from day one, the approach Frontier is adopting for the additional method of space exploration shows that just isn’t the case.