Elite Dangerous 2024, Is It Worth It?

Today we take a look at Elite now, back then, and even in the future. 10 years later, is it still worth a buy?

Videos Referenced:
- UpIsNotJump

- Nyxson

- Chapter Information -
0:00 Intro
0:20 Ships
1:44 Game World
2:26 Story
6:30 The BGS
7:50 The FPS
8:44 The Price

[indigointoblack]

A few details have aged in this video a bit since this videos release, like I said its been an active year lol. So there are P2W microtransctions present now in game, and cosmetics costs more than they did. I personally wouldn't worry about them too much though, this change happened after a major price decrease and the prebuilt ships are very limited. They now let players access new ships early for a few months for a fee aswell. But everyone with Odyssey will get them for free. So if you get the 25 USD version, your gaming experience isnt really impacted in my opinion.

[dvdmuckle]

For what it's worth, the engine changes introduced into Odyssey are now part of the base game too, which means the base game does now require a slightly beefier computer than when the game first came out, which imo makes sense. That being said, some of the on foot activities of Odyssey, such as the on-foot Combat Zones, are particularly taxing in system resources.

[kidmbius]

forgot to mention the monstrous grind.

[Coffee-vwbu]

One thing I didn't see mentioned is the absence of P2W, which is another selling point of Elite over games like EVE Online and Star Citizen. If you get blown up by some ganker in a fully engineered FDL or Cutter, it's because they worked for the ships, not paid real money for them. While you can spend money for ARX, as mentioned, they only affect your ships and weapon colors.

EDIT: Of course, it happened. FDev has just announced, today, 23 of April, that you can pay to purchase the Python Mk2 three months early for real-world money. Additionally, pre-configured ships can also be bought with ARX. Modern monetization strikes again! God knows they need the money though, lol.

[psyanidemcpsy]

A few points form someone who quit years ago after putting in nearly 1000 hours, also someone hoping that the updates coming later this year actually fix and rectify the boring monotony of certain game systems like Power play which was noted at the time of its original release as being lackluster and the exact thing 90% of the community explicitly said they DID NOT WANT in the form it was introduced, because I still HOPE that they get new management that actually wants to capitalize on Elite's potential rather than squandering it with cheap and practically dead on arrival updates, because then I might get my game back and feel like investing more time in it....

1. The flight model is not Newtonian, ships have capped speeds and turning off flight assist simply allows for altering orientation while maintaining current vector, the game still enforces each ships max speeds regardless.

2. Paid (premium) content is no longer simply cosmetic as Frontier have announced their intent to put paid for (premium) ships in the game, injecting a ''pay to win'' mechanic to at least some degree.

3. Frontier's blatant disregard for their player base and community, which is easily searchable as there has been much controversy around Elite.

4. Regardless of the price, you need to ask yourself (and more important in this era of gaming) has the developer actually done anything? rectified things the player base dislikes? behaved themselves as a corporate entity? Because your money IS a vote, and if Frontier are still up to their old tricks, that's what you're voting for.

5. Frontier completely altered Elite's direction. After Braben sold the game as being an ever evolving ambitious project with ever increasing scale and complexity, with ship internals, ''space legs'', boarding actions and EVA.... we got no complexity, just more grinding. We got no EVA nor ship boarding, just a paid expansion that added ''space legs'' and more monotonous on foot combat. Ship internals went from Braben talking enthusiastically and showing graybox renders of the internal spaces of ships only for a 'Community manager' to tell us they aren't doing it as there's 'no gameplay value' in it years later.

6. Yes it has a 1:1 scale of the universe, and that would be exciting... if it were in the real world were we would be able to study new planets, find new minerals and/or life etc, but there isn't, it's just fly here, scan a selection of samey looking rocks in space (again, realistic in presentation, but in real life there's far more to do than just look and scan, if you get me). Now, nobody including myself has asked for 'NMS levels of procedural generation' but what we have asked for are MORE VARIED ACTIVITIES, which we haven't got. It seems Frontier just can't understand the concept of minigames within a game that are tied to a game system.

7. The developer's insistence of 'mile wide, inch deep' game design. Back when they announced multi-crew, many of us got unnecessarily hyped. What we envisioned as the game getting something to tickle that Star Trek itch a little, one friend manning scanners, another weapons etc turned out to be yet another dead on arrival update. Fist and foremost, rewards player crews get is dependent on THEIR relevant ranks in Combat, Exploration or Trade. Secondly.... Most of the time there's literally nothing for your crew to do outside of combat. Someone can't man the scanners/science console and play minigames to 'find' specific scan results like POIs (points of interest). They are also not actually on your ship, they are 'HardLight holographic contracts' projecting from their ship to yours, which conflicts with the Odyssey DLC because if your friends are crewing your ship with you, if you land and get out in space legs for whatever reason, they can't, they are stuck in your ship and if they want to join you they'll have to fly their ship to your position.

Tbh, I can just keep listing the BS Frontier has done and how much they've destroyed their own game's potential and reputation (along with their own as a developer) but it's started to depress me a little. So much potential yet so much of it squandered by developers who's attitude is to put in as little effort as possible.

Quite the essay, I know, but relevant to get the full picture of what you'll be buying.

[marsMayflower]

The titan content is truly epic, now if i could only keep my vette in the fight for more than 1 minute

[toasty]

Never forget when I first learned about automatic stabilization, between switching it it off and on in mid combat really gave me an immersive experiences. Performing maneuvers that place you out of enemy weapon range and you unleashing a barrage of weaponry. Or that one time pirates attack, leaving me for dead space! Bought my ship HP down to 1%, cockpit canopy broken. I thought I was stuck, then my buddy told me to turn off the ship and turn it back on. Did that and got home safely on one freaking percent!

[Glorious_Memes]

For a game that can sometimes go on sale for less than a McDonalds visit and will give you thousands of hours of gameplay while still discovering new things, I'd say its worth it

[Android_ELITE]

I played elite for a good while actually years ago, had fun solo and doing some missions with friends, little bit of exploration, even came back to get my name on a couple first footfalls near nebulas when odyssey released. the thing that ultimately drove me away was that if I wanted to progress further it seemed like I would have to spend dozens of hours grinding tedious repetitive tasks to engineer modules. personally I’m not a fan of that. it was a duel in kraits with my buddy that ultimately opened my eyes to how necessary the engineering grind was; I could match him shot for shot and even outfly him occasionally and I’d just get shredded because he had upgraded guns and shields. never really played much after that.

[Boemel]

Haven't played in 2 years but i remember the day the first Hyperdiction happened and i was logged in every night all night. It was so exciting all the things happening.

[JosephLinares]

I wholeheartedly agree. I started with Elite in 2017 on the PS4 and moved to PC Odyssey about a year or so ago. 2500+ hours combined and I still find reasons to play every week.

[bigbangerz]

Elite is a great game “for players who haven’t been negatively impacted by various Frontier decisions” and/or are happy to ignore them and move on because it doesn’t effect them or they simply don’t care. Personally I think Elite has a good 200hrs gameplay in there for most people but it could be so much more and it is to a core group who basically fall under the 1st sentance…

[neilsmith]

Great video good to see positive ones about elite. Its a special game that shaped alot of the industry. Elite needs to survive

[torquaymouse]

I'm just going to say " This is my all-time favourite game ever" I've been playing nearly every day since kickstarter back in 2012, if your even slightly intrested in space flight, give it a go!

[RyneLanders]

Man, I used to play Elite Dangerous at release in VR with the Saitek X52 sticks and a CV1, and it was AN EXPERIENCE!

[bogdanrotaru]

please for the love of God bring VR for on-foot, that's the only thing holding me to return to elite. Once you play it in VR, you can NEVER return to flat monitor

[JRo]

Completely agree with everything you said. It's a fair and balanced synopsis of the game. I also agree regarding the cost/value equation of ED; it's a bargain.

Beyond that, dude, awesome voice-over and presentation skills. Your audio is immaculate, including the oft missed compression, voice EQ, and excellent mix which makes for very easy listening. Your projection and articulation into the mic is also topnotch, pro level. Nicely done!

[Profane_Pagan]

Ok let me add bc I felt silly bc I started with nitpicking: Indigo this video is a must seen for people who are interested in ED. Thank you for making this. I love how the story of ED is the history what we live through. With a lot of immersive events, news segments...

[attrage]

When I was a kid I got depressed when I realized I'd never be able to jump in a space ship and explore the galaxy. Elite Dangerous is really the only space game that has *truly* made me feel like I was living that fantasy.

[thelionsam]

Great intro/summary 👍 10k hours + and counting in game.