“We’re not trying to be done with Odyssey.”
The last year or so ofElite Dangeroushas been the most dramatic since the game launched in 2014.
But the drama surrounding Elite Dangerous isn’t limited to the game’s overarching story.
“The thing I would say is that we’re listening to that feedback.
It doesn’t fall on deaf ears.
We want to continue to make the game better,” Betterton says.
There are things that we could do better here.'"
Betterton doesn’t provide any specifics about Frontier’s plans for Odyssey.
But the response to the expansion has already resulted in some significant rethinking at the studio.
In March this year, Frontiercancelled all console developmentof the game to focus on Elite and Odyssey.
“We’re not trying to be done with Odyssey,” he says.
It allows us to work in new ways.
Instead, Frontier explain that universal access to Elite Dangerous 4.0 has two purposes.
The first is simply to make its development easier and more efficient.
“We work in 4.0” Betterton says.
There are a couple of important clarifications here.
The update to 4.0 doesn’t provide vanilla Elite players access to everything in Odyssey.
Elements like on-foot exploration and combat will still be exclusive to expansion owners.
Moreover, the code alignment won’t enable Horizons and Odyssey players to play together.
On top of this is a concern.
“It’s still going to be an upgrade,” he says.
“Elite’s been around a while now.
Horizon’s been around a while.
4.0 is part of that.”
The other key reason for Elite’s code alignment is narrative-based.
That said, I was curious as to how Odyssey’s still-exclusive mechanics fall into this.
For example, what happens if part of the story requires players to explore a planet on foot?
Marsh references the destruction of the Capital ships amassed in that system as part of the Proteus Wave event.
Players have always had the ability to influence Elite’s simulation through trading, exploration, and so forth.
“A lot of that went into the last two years of making this story.
The Proteus Wave event wasn’t simply a one-off spectacle, either.
“Humans have been top of the pecking order for some time,” Betterton says.
According to Marsh, all of this “feeds into the escalating Thargoid threat.”
“The galaxy will never be the same again,” Marsh says.
There’s going to be new things to play with, new toys.
We’re very much looking forward to seeing what happens.”
How the changes will affect the community’s feelings about both Elite and Odyssey is hard to gauge.
But as Marsh points out, the game has been changing ever since it launched.
