The first paid update for Elite Dangerous in more than five years, Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, will add tens of thousands of new locations to the game along with traditional first-person shooter gameplay. Frontier Developments unveiled the first look at the action on Thursday during The Game Awards. The expansion is expected to launch in early 2021.
Elite Dangerous is a comically large video game with more than 400 billion star systems in all. So far, players have only been able to experience it from the first-person perspective of a pilot cruising the Milky Way galaxy. Odyssey adds FPS elements for the first time, allowing players to have their own Neil Armstrong moment — giving them the ability to set foot on trillions of distant worlds.
The expansion will launch on Windows PC as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles. Pre-orders begin today at the Epic Games Store, on the Frontier web store, and on Steam. While the expansion starts at $39.99, fans can also purchase the Deluxe Alpha pack for $54.99, which includes access to the alpha and beta versions of the game, a copy of the soundtrack, and exclusive Pioneer suit, specifics of which were not announced.
In addition to first-person combat, Odyssey will also include tens of thousands of new social spaces tied to existing space stations and terrestrial ports of call. It will also add entirely new areas called settlements which will open up new opportunities for stealth, combat, exploration, and more. For additional details, see Polygon’s feature story on Elite Dangerous: Odyssey from this fall.
