If you happen to be a PC player of Elite: Dangerous, you’ve gotten something of a one-two punch of news out of Frontier Developments today. The game has confirmed a launch date for its Update 13 and has also shared information about the code base merger of the Horizons and Odyssey expansions.
Update 13 has locked down a Tuesday, August 9th, release date, bringing with it the fixes that were alluded to earlier this week along with the conclusion of the Azimuth Saga. Players are being invited to HIP 22460 to bear witness to the unfolding of the story’s events.
Holding hands with the narrative’s end is word that code bases for the Horizons expansion will soon merge with the Odyssey expansion in order to better facilitate the next narrative portions FDev has planned. This will, in turn, grants Horizons players several features of Odyssey at no additional cost, like planetary graphics enhancements, settlements on non-tenuous atmosphere planets, and four-person multicrew features; on-foot features like access to FPS content and station concourses, odyssey ranks, and access to tenuous atmosphere planets are not included.
“Moving forwards, all PC players will have access to content in the next narrative phase given they are using version 4.0, except in cases where on-foot gameplay (and by extension, Odyssey) is required,” explains the post.
This will unfortunately continue to leave console players in the lurch, as readers will remember FDev announced this past March that E:D on console will enter maintenance mode, though console players are going to be given a means to move to the PC version if they so choose. An announcement post and FAQ from this past June confirms that this transfer will occur sometime in September, and those who bought the console version will get a free PC copy.
