Elite: Dangerous moves into the third chapter of its Beyond cycle next week

You’ve got to appreciate a game like Elite: Dangerous that downplays an update as “smaller” when it contains more new stuff than some other MMOs do in their content releases. So don’t be deceived by the false modesty of Frontier when it pushes out Beyond — Chapter Three on August 28th.

This third installment of the Beyond era adds a new type of ship called Hybrid Fighters that are “light, fast, and agile with strong shields” but have weaker hulls. The patch also debuts the Alliance Crusader, a sizable ship with its own fighter bay. The patch also brings Engineers to Colonia (if you have the Horizons expansion), planetary wing missions, and several new weapons.

Chapter Four should come at the end of 2018.