I had come here prepared to say a lot about Elite: Dangerous, but I found myself really not having much to talk about. Elite: Dangerous makes me feel simultaneously freer and more restricted than any other game. The premise is golden. You and your cheap ship are tossed into the middle of a mostly-accurate model of our galaxy and told to go chart your own course. The mere concept tickles the imagination. Being a deep-space explorer, a freighter, a bounty-hunter, a miner - all are possible in the world of Elite. And realistically, that's all that is possible, which is really the game's biggest failing. It is a true sandbox - you make your own objectives, and interact with the game's systems as you go. However, pretty much everything you do in the game is just a glorified way to earn credits, and while you can buy ships with those, you sure as hell can't modify them to any meaningful degree. For that, you'll have to farm materials, because you can't buy materials with credits. And you'll have to farm ranks with the engineers, or they won't let you use those materials. And you'll have to farm ranks with the biggest factions, because they have some of the coolest ships and weapons. Like so many other MMOs, this game is all about the grind, which given the unique setting is a huge letdown. Even the Odyssey update - a way to finally get out of your ship and stretch your legs for a bit - only doubled down on the tedium and didn't give you compelling reasons for going outside in the first place (on top of tanking the performance of an otherwise fairly easy-to-run game). There are various systems in place that ostensibly influence the trajectory of the game's ongoing narrative, but your personal influence on this is by and large never visible and seldom do any major revelations come as a result of these efforts that might entice one to keep playing. A mile wide, an inch deep.

So why do I like this game at all? Because of three things: The flight model is a ton of fun, the universe is cool, and it's incredibly immersive. I can sit down, fire up my favorite ship and go do whatever mundane task tickles my fancy. Sometimes I head out to find undiscovered Earth-like planets so I can stamp my name somewhere out in the black and come home to a big payday. Sometimes I just want to shoot at pirates or do daredevil shit in my Eagle Mk.II. Sometimes I just want to cart space rocks from point A to point B while listening to my playlists. In the meantime, the game does a fantastic job of sucking you into a world that feels and sounds real (the audio design in Elite: Dangerous is top-notch), if ultimately far more static than it would want you to believe. This game is an excellent time-killer for the adventurous - a game that lets you boldly go. Just temper your expectations and recognize that this game endorses a distant future barely any different than the present: A place where, at the end of the day, your contributions are minimal and your routine is as dull as ever.

As an added note: Flight in VR is an experience. I highly recommend you try it at least once if you're not susceptible to motion sickness.

Reviewed on Apr 04, 2023


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