Last August, Frontier intimidated that it was shaking up how content in Elite Dangerous would be formatted in 2019, including a “major milestone” for the game that would be paid content. Now we have a better understanding what exactly the studio was talking about back when with today’s community update. The good news is it’s huge; the bad news it’s a really long way off.
“To give this more context, in order to realise the ambition for this update, and the size and scope of the content we wish to bring to the Elite Dangerous galaxy, we estimate this major milestone will be ready by the latter half of 2020,” the studio writes. “As development progresses, we will share more news and announcements on features, as well as timelines regarding this upcoming content for Elite. We can understand that having a long wait for news can be frustrating, but we truly believe that this will be the single most impactful update for our community. Having a development team dedicated to this milestone is our continued and unwavering commitment to making Elite Dangerous the most authentic, ambitious, and expansive evolving space game in the world. As mentioned in our previous post, this new era will be paid for content and all lifetime expansion pass owners will have this included in their pass.”
That doesn’t mean you’ll be getting nothing in the meantime, though. The studio says it’s also got a “smaller” team working on regular game updates and events. Notably, Frontier says it’s plotting a revamp of its in-game event system to make events more exciting and less routine. It also promises updates “roughly every 3-4 months,” though they’re not going to be as big as anything that launched under the Horizons or Beyond banners.
“The first two of these updates will primarily focus on new player and welcoming experiences, and we will also be introducing a number of quality of life improvements for the entire player base, of which we will have more news on in the coming weeks. This will help ensure that new players are able to better progress through the game, and therefore help bring more players through to our very awesome, very welcoming community. We will also have additional game tweaks, benefits and bug fixes for all players. In the subsequent updates we will be focusing on bringing in new features, perks and content, including a range of exciting new additions to the game that will build up to this new era.”
