Humanity is in danger, and I’m ignoring it.
From as long as I can remember I’ve had a fascination with exploring video game worlds. When I was introduced to The Legend of Zelda on the NES in the early ’90s, the quest to save Zelda came secondary to seeing every screen the game had to offer. That curiosity has continued to this day, with games like Death Stranding where story and content wasn’t as important to me as going on silly little walks, delivering parcels, and discovering the world that Kojima Productions had built.
So it’s not surprising in the slightest that exploration is the area of Elite Dangerous that has captivated me most, and continues to do so with the game turning ten years old this month.
When the news spread that Thargoid forces were invading Sol and a colossal Titan was en-route, I was busy outfitting my shiny new Mandalay exploration ship in preparation for an expedition into unexplored space, a ship so fun to use that it has seen the retirement of my beloved ASP Explorer (affectionately named Dora the Asplorer) after over four years of constant use. After a brief stop off at Earth and Mars to help evacuate some citizens, dodging Thargoid fire as I went, I docked my exploration ship on a fleet carrier bound for Colonia (22,000 light years away) knowing that it may have been the last time I’ll see Earth in the game.
Elite Dangerous is one of those games that can be approached however you like. If big explosions and flashy lasers is your thing, I’m told by those who partake that there is no finer simulation of space combat available. If you fancy yourself as a space trucker running trade routes to keep systems supplied with essential resources, that’s also an option. Perhaps you like flashy lasers and explosions but not when they’re firing in your direction? Outfitting a ship for mining and scouring asteroid belts for minerals could be for you. You can even decide to have one of the top 1% passenger liners out there, taking passengers and tourists all over the galaxy. But I like things a little quieter.
It has been a tough year for the games industry, and Elite Dangerous has been my ever present escape from the stresses that has brought
Mechanically, exploration is pretty simple. I’ll jump to a new system andperform a discovery scan to show how many planetary bodies are in the system. I’ll then load up my Full Spectrum Scanner, which lets me scan all those bodies from a distance to discover what type they are. If there’s any valuable systems there – namely water worlds, Earth-like worlds or terraformable planets – I’ll make my way over to within a few thousand kilometres of each one and launch probes to map the surface. If there’s a planet with a few biological life signs, I’ll land on the surface and seek myself out some alien plantlife to scan. But it’s not the gameplay loop that’s hooked me – it’s the things to see along the way.
Frontier has built the most immersive simulation of space that I’ve ever seen, and yet it’s at its most captivating when I’m alone on a distant planet with nothing but the sound of wind, my footsteps on alien soil. I love trekking across vast desserts, navigating chasms too deep to see the bottom or mountains over four times taller than Mount Everest. An expedition to deep space for me can last anywhere between three to 12 months, and I’ll go that entire time without encountering another player or AI-controlled ship. It’s peaceful, lonely, calm, and there’s nothing else like it out there.
A friend once described Elite Dangerous as a “space-based screenshot generator,” and they’re not too far off the mark there. Elite is a beautiful game, at times breathtakingly so. The game is ten years old this month, and as of December 2024 only 0.06% of the galaxy has been explored. Community-led exploration tool Elite Dangerous Star Map estimates that it would take the playerbase 44,000 years to fully explore Frontiers 1:1 representation of the Milky Way galaxy. Your chances of finding something that no other player has seen are very high
Experiencing a moment that makes you pause in wonder, before screenshotting your discovery and heading to EliteExplorers on Reddit to share your discovery may only occur once every 100 hours of playtime, but they are so worth the wait. Colourful deep space nebulae, a planet engulfed by a neutron star, and vast forests of metallic crystals among huge expansive asteroid belts are only some of the sights I’ve had the pleasure of discovering over the years.
2024 has been a resurgent year for Elite Dangerous, and in my opinion it has been the best year for the game to date. Communication from Frontier themselves has been top notch with frequent ‘Frontier Unlocked’ developer updates posted to YouTube, game updates have been frequent, and they have been meaningful. New ships have been added to the game for the first time since 2018, the game’s powerplay system (which allows players to influence factions’ control of core systems) has been revamped, and the Thargoid war has escalated with numerous community raids against Titans.
Frontier has built the most immersive simulation of space that I’ve ever seen, and yet it’s at its most captivating when I’m alone on a distant planet with nothing but the sound of wind
Announced updates for the future also have the community abuzz with a colonisation feature coming in early 2025 that will allow players to establish their own space stations and planet-based facilities to expand humanity’s reach through the galaxy. After the disappointing launch of Odyssey, Elite Dangerous’s second and latest paid expansion, the future finally feels bright for Elite and the content added to the game shows no sign of slowing down.
It has been a tough year for the games industry, and Elite Dangerous has been my ever present escape from the stresses that has brought. I’ve played some wonderful games over the past 12 months – Balatro, Animal Well, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, or Sea of Thieves – that continue to be the dominant attraction for gaming sessions with my friends, games that this article could easily have been about, but all roads have led back to Elite, the search for that next awe-inspiring sight, and my next screenshot.
