Elite Dangerous: Odyssey

From the very beginnings of Elite Dangerous’Kickstarter, being able to experience the universe from your avatar’s own two feet has been something “on the roadmap” although it was never guaranteed to make it into the final game. Some six and a bit years later and the newest expansion, Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, will finally let commanders stretch their legs and finally get out of those cockpits.

- Simon Brown

Publisher: Frontier Developments

Developer: Frontier Developments

Genre: Simulation

Release Date: 19 May

Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One

The Alpha for the expansion just wrapped up with the game’s official launch date being in a few weeks, on the 19th of May, so here are some thoughts on what the Odyssey Alpha showed us and my hopes for the final release.

Odyssey allows for commanders to finally leave their ships and buggies. Physically setting foot on existing landable planets (along with the addition of those with thin tenuous atmospheres) to experience and wander a variety of stations and outposts. Station interiors act as an on-foot hub of sorts, allowing you to take missions from new characters as well as the traditional (but redesigned) mission boards.

Interiors mostly provide access to services similar to what players are used to when in their ships but tailored to your new perspective, Pioneer Supplies provides weapons and armour; Inter Astra is the Shipyard equivalent enabling purchase and transfer of ships. Vista Genomics will pay you for any biological samples you scan on your travels.

Each of the Interiors available in the Alpha looked great and I can only hope there are more in the final release. They do a tremendous job of making the world of Elite feel like an actual place with holographic billboards, banners and propaganda making the previously dour locations come alive. It helps get the flavour of the world that David Braben and Frontier has cultivated over the last 25 years across in a more direct way than any in-game news article could.