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Elite Dangerous
Elite Dangerous lets you chart your own course through exploration, combat, mining and trade, while outfitting ships to match your plans. At ≈ $3.87 from 
Kinguin, it suits buyers who want an open-ended space sandbox rather than a tightly directed campaign. Solo play is available, and a Wing can include up to three friends for shared journeys through the galaxy. At $5.99 on Steam, this offer from Kinguin costs ≈ $2.12 less and opens up a galaxy built around exploration and trade.
All-time low ~ $1.88across Steam & third-party stores
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $1.882025-09Current Low Across Stores~ $5.49GameBilletvs. Historical Low+192%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
01About Elite Dangerous
Pilot your own starship across an open, evolving galaxy, choosing a path through exploration, combat, mining or trade. The Steam PC version lists single-player, multiplayer and co-op. The description features more than 35 spacecraft and a galaxy recreated at a 1:1 scale. Players can fly solo or form a Wing with up to three friends. Player rating: 76% from 82,629 reviews.
Credits
Developer
Frontier Developments
Publisher
Frontier Developments
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$1.882025-09-30 · GameBilletBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Yes | — | Yes |
| French | Yes | — | — |
| German | Yes | — | — |
Show 3 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | Yes | — | — |
| Spanish | Yes | — | — |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | — | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-13
02Before you buy
Play modes
The Steam PC listing includes single-player, multiplayer and co-op; the description says up to three friends can join a Wing.
Language and audio
Interface languages listed are English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. English full audio is listed; controller support is unspecified.
03Frequently asked questions
Can I play solo?
Yes. The Steam PC listing includes single-player, and the description specifies a Solo mode.
What multiplayer options are described?
The description mentions Wings with up to three friends, Squadrons and encounters with other players in Open Play.
What activities does the game offer?
Activities include exploration, space combat, mining, smuggling and trade. Ships can be customized with components, weapons and modules.
8.0
Overall Score
Graphics8
Audio8.5
Gameplay9
Story5.5
Content6.5
“A hardcore long-haul that trades a 1:1 real Milky Way for genuine awe of scale — the space-immersion benchmark, grind and all”
Our Verdict
Where it sits on the scoreboard, and the core no one has copied
Pull every dimension together and the portrait of Elite Dangerous is actually crystal clear.
On the objective board it lands at Metacritic 80, OpenCritic 79, a 76% positive rating on Steam — a favourable band where the framework is respected and the content divides opinion. The critic score sits clearly above a user score driven by more casual players, and that gap is the portrait of its character. It is not a game everyone will like, but its ceiling reaches a height others cannot touch.
That height is the awe of scale a 1:1 Milky Way produces. This is the part nobody has copied: flying toward the core, looking back at that silver band from the intergalactic void, realising the real distance under you must be measured in real time, you feel something close to religious smallness.
That awe is not something graphics or mechanics deliver alone — it is the product of true scale as a founding premise, and almost no other game dares, or manages, to reproduce it.
Who should buy it, who should walk past, and which edition
Precisely because it is so divided, the verdict on buying it is unusually clean.
It suits the hardcore space lover willing to pour in the hours, ideally with a VR-and-HOTAS rig to match. If you long to face a real star sea alone, to study flying as a craft, to taste something in the slowness and the solitude, it will give you an experience you will not find elsewhere — and that peripheral spend is near-mandatory, since it neutralises the repetitive grind into bearable immersion.
Flip it around: if you want clear goals, instant feedback, and the rush of a plot pushing you forward, it will likely disappoint. It will not guide you, will not reward your impatience; its pleasures have to be grown with patience, and a player who fights that grain will only resent it. That player is better served starting from a friendlier neighbour like No Man's Sky. On editions, the full package with Horizons and Odyssey gets you everything and is the cleanest choice for anyone meaning to take it seriously.
It is over a decade old, yet Space.com still named it the best space flight sim of 2025. For a game to stay that fresh says the thing it bet on — trading real scale for real awe — has still not been done better by anyone.
It is imperfect, with plenty of obvious wounds, but it is one of a kind, and being one of a kind is itself a remarkable thing. It is not the game you recommend to every friend; it is too demanding, too slow to warm, too unwilling to bend. But for the small crowd it truly strikes, it is not one option among many space games — it is the only ship. A decade on, no one has built a more honest galaxy, and for the people who needed exactly that, nothing else will ever quite do — and that is enough.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
This game is really quite good, and there is a lot to it. The game's flight mechanics are simple enough that they can be easily grasped and intuitively controlled faster than with most flight games. Entering this game, you should expect a learning curve, and for part of the fun being exploring all the things you can do as you learn. If you're expecting the game to tell you how to play beyond basic tutorials or what to do to experience the game, you're going to blunder around for an hour, rage quit, and then feel the game lacks content and you were ripped off. This game is a sandbox. Be prepared to find your own way. Lets get to the game itself: The general point of the game is to reach "Elite" rank. You can do this via combat, trading, or exploration. Lets talk about each of these three types of play in turn: Combat: Excellent part of this game. There are a diverse range of weapons, each which function differently and place different strains on your ship's loadout. You want to use Plasma Accelerators? Well, those have major power drain, so you need your ship to have a large power plant. Bigger shield? More power. Shield cell banks? More power. Planning out your ship for combat is a really enjoyable, and ongoing experience throughout the game. As far as combat goes, you can approach it as a bounty hunter, going out and hunting down people who have committed crimes to collect the bounty associated with bringing justice... Or you can be a pirate and accrue a bounty on your head by tracking down other pilots, breaking their shields and forcing their goods to be released for you to steal and sell on the black market. Overall, this is an incredibly enjoyable part of the game. If nothing else, you'll get a solid 20-30 hours out of combat progression. Trading: This part is a bit more up in the air to a lot of people. Some people don't like the repetitious nature of trading in the game, but it really depends on what you look for. Trading involves going to different stations, recording what they have in high demand, and what they have in high supply, and linking that up with other stations which can supply the high demand, and which demand what the first station has in high supply. In other words, basic supply/demand economics, you trade the goods between stations. This can be a bit dull, other than when pirates are after you, but it really depends what you want. This is the Euro-Truck Simulator part of the game. If you want something relaxing, flying between stations while listening to a podcast, audiobook, or watching a TV show, trading is for you. Exploration: The galaxy is big. Bigger than I think most of us have a grasp of. Many of us know "Well, the galaxy is obviously massive", but there's a difference between that and truly realizing the sheer size of it all. Sol, that is the solar system earth is found in, is a bit closer to the edge of the galaxy than the center. It takes around 20-30 hours to reach the center of the galaxy in non-stop jumping from star to star. To travel all around the galaxy, you're talking months worth of time devoted to exploring. And that doesn't even count the time it takes to scan each system, and go around scanning planets to create data you can sell for money. Why would anyone want to do this? Well, have you ever flown up to a black hole, and seen the light distort around it in an eerie, terrorizing sense of dread? Have you ever seen a planet that due to gravitational force has been compressed into an oblong shape? Have you ever seen a supermassive red giant star revolving around a black hole? These are the types of things you see when you explore, and for many, the feeling of exploring and seeing these things is worthwhile. If you're the first one to explore something, your name is also tagged to it forever. The civilized area of space only takes about 500 LY around Sol, with the rest up to being explored. Peripherals: The game works very well with a mouse and keyboard, with a XBox 360 controller, and with most joysticks (HOTAS or otherwise). There are default bindings built into the game for the 360 controller, as well as most market joysticks. So you wont have to worry about rebinding all that much while you're learning. Always Online Note: You have a multiplayer option in which you're around other players. Players will try to pirate you, others will bounty hunt for you, etc. You can set up wings, groups of up to 4 pilots to do grouping fights. Or, if you want to be a recluse, you can play Solo and avoid other players, and just play with NPCs. Or maybe you just want to play with your friend, you can set up a Private Group. All of these require a constant internet connection, but it is for a reason. Anytime you do something in the game, it shapes the political and economic landscape. If you buy resonating separators from Cemiess, you reduce the amount of supply in Cemiess, which makes the price go up. When this happens, the game pings the global server, and changes the value for everyone else in their own servers. So although you are away from other players, what you do still impacts the galactic economy for everyone. Galactic Political Landscape: There are 3 major factions in the game: the Alliance, Federation, and Empire. Additionally, there are Independent factions bound to specific star systems. Each of these has control or lacks control over some stars systems. Lets say you look at a system like Lugh which was ruled by the Federation. Within Lugh, there are many "parties" that are in government, running for political control. The Federation party is in control. But if players start to do missions against the party in control, if they start to kill police, pirate traders, do things to disrupt the peace in that system, it spurs on civil unrest in the population of the system. They start to demand change. A civil war can break out between the faction in power, and the faction that is not in power, and they fight. Players can get involved in assisting in these wars to earn combat bonds, and help shape the outcome of the war. Depending on which side wins, the system may flip. In Lugh, the system did flip. Players turned out early on in mass numbers to test this, trying to flip Lugh from the Federation into an independent star system under the Crimson party. This was accomplished, and Lugh is currently an independent star system as the Federation backed down. Anytime you do a mission, it pings the global server to say what the current influence levels are of the party. So even if you play solo, you can impact global politics. What this game does not do is give you a set path. You'll load up the game, you'll have some tutorials to teach you the basic maneuvers and travel of the game, and then you'll be dropped into a dock in star system LHS 3447. You wont get a quest prompt, the game wont say "Hey, go here and do this!". You'll be docked at a space station, and it will be up to you to find out what it is you want to do. You need to find your own way. You'll blunder around and advance on your own terms. When you start out, you should be prepared to blunder around for a little bit as you explore and learn more about the galaxy and how things work. But the exploration, the learning of how things work is a lot of the fun. This is an open world space game, and the way you experience it is something you'll dictate for yourself. I can't recommend this game enough. The combat is really damn fun, there are a lot of different weapons and ships that make for a truly enjoyable experience. Trading and Exploration offer great ways to still progress in the game while listening to audiobooks, or watching TV shows.Show moreShow less
45 hours at review4,115 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Introduction I've played this game a lot. While most people appreciate the great lengths I went through to make a thorough review of the game, a handful remain vexed that I could put in 500 hours in a game and still have a negative review, so I updated this top section to include this explanation. The concept which said handful of people do not seem to understand is that mere hours-played does not reflect the quality of a game experience. In other words, how "good" a game is isn't simply a matter of how many hours were invested — what matters is how much fun you had in those hours. So yes, I played almost 500 hours, but after the first 20 I was already getting bored. The only reason I kept playing is because I really wanted the game to work, I hoped that it would get better/more interesting once I reached the "end-game" in terms of better ships/higher ranks/etc., and also because I found I could grind my way to all those things while watching TV. The point is: Simply looking at the money to time ratio is a crude way of measuring the quality of a game. One might think if I played a $60 game for 60 hours, that's $1/hour, not so bad, right? I beg to differ, because again that doesn't take into account the quality of those hours. I would pay $1/hr for a really fun experience or maybe even for just an "ok" experience, but if all 60 of those hours were frustrating, boring, or otherwise not particularly enjoyable, that $1/hr doesn't seem so appealing. Elite: Dangerous — while briefly exciting at first when everything was new — became very boring very fast, and when I quit I felt like I wasted 500 hours of my life. My review is simply to inform people as to what they are really getting into such that I may prevent them from feeling the same way. The Art Appeal Undoubtedly, the visual presentation of this game is top-notch. The cinematic videos are misleading because you can only do combat from a 1st person view (looking out through the window of your ship's cockpit) and the ships are not nearly that manoeuvrable, but the graphics are in general well-done and the sound is even better. If you sit back for a moment with your eyes closed and listen to the creaking of metal as your ship accelerates, the ever-changing hum of your engines in response to your controls, and — if you're unlucky — the sound of your canopy cracking because you took too much fire in combat... you'll find the sounds really make you feel a part of your ship. The art team really deserves a big pat on the back for their work. Where this game goes astray, unfortunately, is in the game design and that's where all the potential they have from such an aesthetically beautiful game remains unrealized. Great Potential... Uncaptured The problems this game has are a mix of two types: Some are just not designed well, and need to be completely redesigned. Some are designed well in principle but are underdeveloped/poorly implemented. Let's look at an example of the latter type first: As you may know, vast portions of this game are procedurally generated. This is totally fine, in fact I strongly support procedural generation in games. The problem is that their algorithms for this (that generate the content) are woefully underdeveloped. Consider the mission system: You'll go to a planet and some missions are randomly generated for you. They may have a format like: "Pick up <random market item> from <randomly selected nearby planet> and return for <random number of credits within a range based on item cost>." Sometimes you get reputation instead of credits, and the chosen mission items are not wholly random (it's based on what that planet needs), etc., but you get the point. The problem is the system just does not have enough variety to it. You'll soon recognize a repeating pattern of 5 or so types of missions that you have to grind over and over to rank up. Not only is it extremely repetitive, but the rewards are almost completely useless: The missions that involve transporting goods will give you around 1000-50,000 credits depending on the product and will take you ~15m to do. The "Kill X NPC ship" missions will give you around 150,000 credits, but they can easily take 30m to an hour. For perspective, a half-decent trader can easily earn 6,000,000 credits in an hour. To top it all off, getting reputation in itself has almost no purpose other than to unlock a few ships which aren't any better than ships which can be obtained without rank. In fact the only reason people obtain them is because they enjoy how they look. But for everyone else there is no point in ranking up, and thus no point in doing missions at all since there is nothing else worthwhile to gain, even with the Powerlay changes. To be clear, the design is fine in principle but it is not well-executed: missions need more diversity and more rewards — you need to give players a reason for doing them. An example for the first type of problem (something just plainly not designed well) is the play modes: Open (online multiplayer), Solo (online singleplayer), and Private (online singleplayer with friends). If you thought it was challenging enough to encounter people in the vast reaches of space by itself, trying doing so when at least half of all players are playing solo mode. Don't get me wrong, having a Solo mode is fine (in fact many people wanted an offline singleplayer which I totally support), but the ability to swap between modes at will creates a system where the majority of players stay in solo to avoid the risks, making Open play seemingly devoid of life, and all the while this game is marketed as an "MMO". Very misleading... this game is no more an MMO than Diablo 3 is an MMO. These are just a taste of some of the issues with this game. In previous versions of this review, I wrote out a fairly exhaustive list but character limits prevent me from rewriting it here, so a link to a picture of them will have to suffice: Detailed list So it's a bit rusty now, but what about later? As many other reviewers have echoed, this game is a broken sandbox that lacks toys. Normally, there'd be nothing wrong with that as long as there were plans to improve the game with time. I'm sure the designers do plan to fix some things and add content. However, I honestly don't think the game will get significantly better because it appears that the designers are mostly satisfied with how the game has turned out. Those design decisions which I think need improving, the detailed list above — the developers seem totally fine with many of them, in fact they seem to think it's what most players want. Indeed, the primary reason I cannot in good conscience recommend this game to anyone is that after two months of trying to get actively involved with the community it appears this game is essentially being designed by one or two people at the top who have little to no interest (or experience) with what would make their game most successful. Rather, it seems they follow their own desires even if they go counter to what the playerbase wants or what would be best for their company (usually the two go hand-in-hand). There's no player polls, little forum engagement... from the current designs and what little interaction they have with the community, it seems clear that this game is their child — the latest in a historied franchise stretching back to the 80s — and they are designing it the way they want, which may or may not be in the best interest of the fans. It is for these reasons I feel the game is unlikely to ever shape up into something that will draw a substantial long-term following and why I cannot in good faith recommend this game.Show moreShow less
480 hours at review6,686 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Eurotruck Simulator - Motion Sickness Edition The game is perfectly controllable with keyboard and mouse, just make sure to change the default setting, which are useless. This guide helped me a lot: - Change the mouse x axis from roll to yaw - Set Q/E to roll left/right - Set W/S/A/D to up/down/left/right thrusters - Set R/F to forward/reverse thrusters - Set your mouse wheel to control speed; what I mean by this is to click in the 'increase throttle' binding box and roll the mouse wheel up, and do the same with 'decrease throttle' and roll your mouse wheel down. - Set speed increments to 25%. You'll never need more fine grain control than that. (I also set shift/ctrl as secondary binds for these)Show moreShow less
45.5 hours at review2,620 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
"Oh... my... God. Is it really you? Commander Zigglepants?" "Yeah. Heh. Nice to meet a fan." "I can't believe it. I've always wanted to be a space pilot like you. You've done EVERYTHING. How did you get started?" "Well, believe it or not my first job was doing delivery runs." "Really? That must have been tedious." "It was. And the pay was terrible. You'd accept a mission in one star system and do nothing but hop from star system to star system for an hour or more before accepting your tiny payment. "Sounds pretty bad." "Yeah. I only did that for a short time before I got into smuggling." "Oh, cool. Sneaking into heavily armed facilities with illegal cargo? That sort of thing?" "Exactly. Although you only do the sneaking at the end bit of your journey. The rest of it was just as dull as the deliveries. And even the sneaking was only fun the first few times. After that it became pretty routine. The pay was a lot better, though." "So how did you become a famous bounty hunter?" "I'm afraid the stories are exaggerated. I took my first contract at my local station. It told me to fly to a nearby star and hunt down a notorious pirate." "Did you get him?" "No. I showed up at the star and he wasn't there. I flew around scanning promising signals, but each one turned out to be a dud. To make it worse, it took about 10 minutes to fly between each signal and there wasn't much to do in the meantime. After a few hours of this, the contract expired." "That's too bad." "Yeah, the next few contracts turned out the same so at that point I gave up, bought a warrant scanner, and decided to go freelance." "What does that mean?" "Well, it means you sit in one place next to a navigation beacon or resource extraction point, and hope to catch pirates if they show up." "Neat. How many did you catch?" "None. It took me about an hour to pick up the scanner and fly to a promising system. Then I waited around for a few hours scanning ships but no pirates showed up. Well, a couple did... but none of them came out of supercruise. After a few nights of this, I decided to dump the stupid scanner into the sun. When I got home, I received a strange message. Someone wanted to hire me to carry some mystery cargo to a certain sector and wait for further instructions." "Did you take the job?" "Of course! It seemed like the first interesting thing that had happened to me as a space commander. Yeah, I accepted the job and headed out to the sector they named. Took a lot of time to get there. Then I started waiting for my contact." "Who was it?" "I dunno. He never showed. I waited around for a couple hours and eventually the mission expired. I did get to fight some pirates, ironically. It seems like they really wanted that cargo, whatever it was. They should have just asked. After waiting around for a few hours, I tossed it into the sun too. Hold on, I have a customer." Commander Zigglepants turns away and talks into his headset. "Hello, welcome to McSpaceport. Can I take your order? Combo #2? That will be 4,000 credits. First window, please." He turns back. "Sorry about that." "No problem. So you work a drive-through window now?" "This is WAY more fun. Trust me." "What about the Close Quarters Championship? You know. Arena mode? Did you ever compete?" "Oh, yeah! I actually hold the world record." "No way! What's it like?" "Well, the Close Quarters Championship is a screen with the words 'Searching for Match' and a little spinning circle. The winner is the person who can sit and watch the screen the longest before closing it. I broke the previous world record with a time of 90 minutes before I got bored and went for a snack. The majority of commanders can't make it any longer than 10 minutes. It's actually not as -" "Wait! Aren't there, like, space ships and stuff in the arena?" "Hmm.... I doubt that very much. If there are, I never saw any." "You know what, I still think I want to be a space commander." "Suit yourself... but can I offer a word of advice?" "Please!" "You're going to spend most of your time travelling and waiting around, so bring a video game to keep yourself entertained." "Got it." "...and make sure it's NOT Elite: Dangerous." Subscribe to my curator page here View my other reviews here Meh.Show moreShow less
53 hours at review2,917 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Mission: Find 2 tons of grain and bring back within 13 (real time) hours, get paid 2400 dollars. Easy enough. *13 hours later* I'm somehow 1200 light years away and I've discovered 3 nebulas, made a hundred thousand dollars hunting bounties, found a mysterious black box that I illegally sold for 20,000 dollars, and still...not a single station that sells grain. Conclusion: There is no bread in space.Show moreShow less
18.8 hours at review2,519 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
This is great space sim; its beautiful, complex, massive and with little content. There are only about 15 ships in the game, and there's a good chance you won't use most of them. Same goes for the 15 whole guns. And to get ANY of the decent ship, you must grind an insane amount.... only to do the exact same thing in a slightly better/different ship. There is no End Game btw. None. The real kicker is that the dlc is more expensive for people who already own the game. FD is blantaly screwing over its orginal customers. I cannot recommend a game that treats its fanebase worse than an average stranger. Worse is that I had no clue that there was going to be different "seasons" to this game which you will be required to buy ($45 every several monthes). Combined with the lack of content and the dearth of End Game material, you're basically paying a subscription for an alpha mmo but not. In several years from now when you can pick up all the 'seasons' for cheap, I'l change my recommendation. Update: Space Engineers released their planets for free.. Update 2: Devs continously block any negative conversation about the expansion. Nail in the coffin.Show moreShow less
249.2 hours at review2,582 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
From Cynical Skepticism Blooms Humbling Immersion My first night playing E:D my reaction was one of bleak disappointment. I’ve learned to manage my expectations of games that come with a lot of hype but that doesn’t always do much to soften the blow, especially when we are dealing with one of my favorite genres. I kept thinking, “I waited 30 years and paid $60 for Euro Truck in Space? Seriously?” Unfortunately many players have never moved past this stage. The basic gameplay at first does seem only to consist of navigating menus, watching some warp animations, trying not to crash while trying to park, repeat. And yet, while I kept repeating this thought to myself, I kept playing. In fact, the more I played, the more I wanted to keep playing. At the time I could not identify what was happening. Shouldn’t I be packing this game up and dismissing it as another instance of hype without substance? What I realize now is that the game was operating on me on an unconscious level. Tiny details from every corner of the experience combined with flawless internal consistency to build an emergent narrative structure somewhere inside of me that I was not even aware of until I was already a part of it. I’ll give you the four examples that, in order, brought me around to recognizing how huge and emergent the E:D universe is and how immersed in it I had already become: When you request docking clearance at a facility, they give it to you in the form of a spot assignment and a timer. So there I am trying to park my clanky old VW Rabbit of a spaceship on this backwater industrial platform, scraping it against the walls, generally not succeeding- and the timer runs out. And I get a communication from the facility. Move along, your spot is forfeit, you’ve been assessed fines and you won’t be welcome back until they are paid. A few hours later, I’m hurtling across a solar system towards a facility orbiting a gas giant. I’m cruising at maybe and average of 150c. The planet is between me and the facility and as the gassy behemoth grows in my viewport I notice something- my speed is dropping. I haven’t throttled down. What the hell? Several more runs and my suspicions are confirmed: the closer you come to gravitic bodies, the less you are able to break the speed of light. Furthermore, clip too close to a sun and it will anchor you, causing an emergency drop into real space and a seriously life-threatening situation. Much later, still playing, I’m running a courier mission to a huge station in a densely populated area of the galaxy. To get to the entrance port I need to fly around to the nightside of beautiful M-class gem...and I notice a twinkle in the corner of my viewport. I activate head look and turn my gaze that direction. And there it is. The nightside of the planet is aglow with a sparkling network of living cities. It took my breath away. Here is where things really got serious. I go online checking supply and demand stats and I make a handful of runs carrying foodstuffs from this certain fringe base just within exploitation radius of the Federation. Well it turns out a lot of other commanders got the same idea, and the base’s food supplies are gutted. Next thing I know, I’m returning for me- and someone tries to interdict my ship into real space. Which is terrifying. I find an escape vector and make it through safely, only to find my scanner alight with “conflict zones.” Messages start pinging into my comms. Things like You should not have come back here and There’s nothing left here except blood and We won’t let it end this way, we will die free. When I finally make it to the facility and land, I find out that a different minor faction unique to the base has taken over operation. In other words, it would seem, faced with starvation, they staged a coup, and ignited a civil war with the Feds. Incredible. No one, certainly not the game, explained these things to me. These are things that I learned about over the course of my journeys. The game is absolutely rife with these sorts of details: available, amazing, and yet existing without fanfare or gimmick. They are simply part of the way the universe works. By the end of these events I realized I had left my Euro Truck impressions far behind. In fact, I had become thoroughly immersed. I felt like I was truly sailing the vastness between the stars, one small part of an enormous world- a world far huger than I will ever be, that exists regardless of my interaction. This recognition was nothing less than humbling. The Truest RP Experience I’ve Had in a Decade Which brings me to my next point. E:D is not a roleplaying in the sense we usually think of these days. You accrue reputation levels in various ways, but there are no character stats, skill trees, experience points, or anything like that. And yet this game is easily the most complete RP I’ve had the pleasure of playing in a very long time. So how can that be? It happens because the game is almost complete indifferent to the player. It may seem counterintuitive, but the result is that all meaning has to come from within. This is no Elder Scrolls, no one is going to tell you you’re here to save the universe. And to be honest, in the games where someone does say something like that, I don’t feel special. In fact the RP is largely broken because everyone gets that line. In E:D your decisions are yours alone. And personally, I have watched CMDR Paklo develop a character organically when faced with the many decisions that are technically easy in game but they are difficult in a subjective moral or ethical sense. For example, Paklo refuses to participate in the slave trade. From a practical standpoint slaves are just a number on a spreadsheet in terms of gameplay. But over time I’ve become invested in Paklo’s path through life- and Paklo will not trade slaves. The world is emergent in such a way that these sorts of decisions happen on a much larger scale as well. I’ll give an example. Having become disillusioned with the Federation I recently pledged my fealty to the Imperial Princess Aisling (aka Space Khaleesi), an outspoken critic of the Empire’s historical condoning of the slave trade. A group of commanders, of their own volition, have banded together at various spots along trade routes known to move slaves. From these spots they interdict ships, scan their cargo, and if they are carrying slaves, destroy them. This activity does not occur at the game’s behest. It is 100% organic roleplaying at its finest. So to conclude on the merits of the game alone, without addressing Frontier’s business ethics- 9.75/10, the highest number rating I have ever given, absolutely essential. No Drama, Just Reviews *steam awards*Show moreShow less
44.1 hours at review2,452 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
"Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." [and apparently full of repetition and devoid of content] There is so much potential in this game that it pains me to write this, but as I see it consistently on the front page of the top sellers list, I think it's important to tell you what this game is and what it is not. The defenders of the game will tell you that you should have researched the game before buying it, or that in this game you are not the center of the universe. Both are true; however, there is something else to note: This is pretty much an early access title without labeling it one selling at a AAA price. Before I dive in, I first just want to say the graphics are breathtaking, and the actual flight mechanics are rather enticing. This leads me to reiterate that it is truly a game with a lot of potential. Currently there are really three main things you can do in the game: trade, bounty hunting, and exploration. There is also pirating, which is essentially interdicting (pulling a ship out of intra-solar system warp), and using either little robots or shooting at the target until they drop their cargo, which you scoop up and go sell at a black market. Trade is the purchasing of goods from one station at a lower price and truck them somewhere else to sell at a higher price. Does this affect the in game economy in any meaningful way? No. Can you exhaust the production of one station and create a shortage? No. Can supplying a station of a faction you like have any meaningful outcome? No. The in game economy is stagnant, and the goods are meaningless. In theory, the idea behind trade is that you are offering your services to benefit a faction of some kind, and currently this has no meaningful outcome...perhaps in the future it may. Bounty Hunting is shooting at a ship that's wanted. They have a price tag on their head and you shoot them and go collect the bounty. It can be lucrative, but it can also be incredibly repetitive, just like trading. You are usually shooting at NPC ships because you will rarely, if ever, see another player even in online mode because of the sheer size of the game you are playing in, unless you go to an area known for having players. Exploration is going outside of known space in the galaxy map and clicking buttons and scanning down planets, stars, and the like. The galaxy, a 1:1 ratio of the Milky Way is enormous with over 400 billion systems. Sounds cool right? It is, at least in the beginning. Eventually you will begin to realize that scanning is, again, repetitive (seeing a pattern here?) and the actual process itself seems to have no value what so ever other than getting your name attached to a celestial object and selling the data for credits. I already explained pirating, let me discuss PVP briefly. PVP rarely occurs because of the immensity of the galaxy map outside of known areas, but even in known areas, you can successfully just disconnect from the game before your ship is blown up and/or just not participate in the open play aspect and have no fear of another player what so ever. If you thought solo PVP in Eve Online was bad, e.g. flying around for hours trying to find an evenly matched opponent to test you skills on, try flying around for days and not seeing a single soul. What else? The game promises a lot. The next expansion, powerplay, promises to revamp the horrendous in-station missions that pay you nothing and are incredibly obnoxious as most of them require you to fly out and ping down 'unidentified signals' that randomly spawn and investigate, hope, and pray that it may contain something of value to help you complete your mission. Most of the time they have nothing to do with your mission and you get to go back into the solar system warp view and crack on until the next one. This yields you a pithy sum and your time is effectively wasted as you could have blown up one or two ships and received the same credit amount in currency. Powerplay could improve this immensely, but this remains to be seen. I could go on and on, but the problem with this game is simply this: the actuality of game content has yet to catch up even a fraction to the potentiality of what is there [and what they promise will be there]. If you don't mind grinding in the least bit, you will get a lot of time out of this game and if you like the genre, you should pick it up. If you don't mind a little grinding here and there, but want it to mean something, you will be disappointed, as I am, and finally, if you don't like grinding at all, you will probably loathe the game. So what's my recommendation? Wait a year, yes...a year, for both a sale and numerous updates to provide you with the tools to play in the sandbox. This game should have been marked as EARLY ACCESS. This should give you a better idea of how much content there is. Instead, they chose to sell it as a finished game with a AAA price tag, which, I think, is disingenuous. Sure you can play it and have fun in the beginning, but unless you really enjoy the grind, you will quickly grow bored and tuck it in your hidden folder where it belongs (at least for now).Show moreShow less
84.3 hours at review2,580 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
How to enjoy Elite Dangerous: - Understand that the concept is a space sandbox, and don't expect any hand holding - Set your own goals - Embrace the in game community. Players are some of the friendliest I've ever met in online gaming. o7 - Ignore the forums - Don't grind. How not to enjoy Elite Dangerous: - Expect EvE Online - Expect a standard MMO experience - Expect a single player RPG story - Expect everything now - Expect to be special in a universe where you mean nothing - Expect to be safe from pvp in Open mode There are other guidelines that could be added I'm sure, but put it this way - if you loved Frontier/ Frontier First Encounters, you'll like this. After 500 hours I've more than got my money's worth, even if I uninstall tomorrow. Are there flaws? Of course. Frontier are a small developer, and things take time. Some mechanics need a bit more depth, but in general you'll get a varied, truly beautiful galaxy, superb atmosphere, great flight model, and complete freedom. It's the best space sim available at the moment, in my view at least.Show moreShow less
470.3 hours at review2,095 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I really want to love this game, I really do. Sadly, the devs have caused me to never want to play again. Let me explain the pros and cons. Pros: - A vast galaxy to explore. I estimated that in an exploration-fit ship, you'd be able to reach the other side of the galaxy in about 95 hours. That's not including the return trip, and that's assuming you don't stop to scan anything along the way. - A robust combat system. I'm not sure how you can really get more robust than flying around and shooting things with fixed or gimballed lasers or cannons or rails or plasma accelerators, or homing and dumb-fire missiles, launching chaff, etc. - Beautiful graphics. This game looks astonishingly good. You certainly won't forget your first black hole or neutron star. - Simplified flight model. It's not 100% realistic, but that makes for a more approachable flight model. The ships fly like jets in Battlefield, if a bit more responsive. Neutral: - Lots of frontloaded content. Your first 20-40 hours will be fantastic. Around 30 hours, you'll start to notice content slowing down. Around 40, things start looking familiar. At 50 hours, everything looked the same to me. - Ship customization. There isn't a lot of reason to try to come up with a clever build, since the time you waste min/maxing your build equates to about 2.3561 more seconds in combat or 8.65 seconds shaved off your trade route. It's fun to customize, but ultimately pretty pointless. Cons: - Lack of depth. People will argue that if you got 50 hours of fun, you got your money's worth, but I find that to be a really dumb argument. This type of game is designed to be fun for hundreds of hours, yet I found myself struggling to find reasons to play after 70 hours, and finally gave up at 100. There just isn't a lot of compelling things to do. It's where the frontloaded content really starts to be a problem. - Dev response. The devs tend to add things to the game for the sole purpose of checking off a box, like "They want social interaction? Let's add the ability to group up to 4 people at once!" The community wanted guilds, chat channels, etc, and all we got was the ability to add a small number of people in a group at once, provided you're in the same instance. Which reminds me... - Instancing and the P2P model. This is what really kills this as a multiplayer game. Let's say you're trying to track down another player. You find him, interdict him, and start shooting. He activates his warp drive and heads off to the next system over. You follow him, but when you drop into the system... he's not there. You know he has to be there, he's not in the previous system, and this is the only system close enough to warp to. So where is he? Welcome to instancing. - Solo/Private Group play. Not that it exists (though the fact that Solo is not offline is bothersome), but that it affects Open play (multiplayer). There's a background simulation that affects the landscape of the galaxy (PowerPlay is one such system). This is influenced by player interaction. You could work together with people in Open, aligned to the same faction, to flip a system to another power's control. But, you can also do this in Solo or Private Group play as well. This means that you can successfully complete objectives without worrying about players attempting to stop you. The biggest problem, however, is that the devs seem to have a grand vision of what they want their game to look like, and are willing to pursue that wholeheartedly at the expense of the players. They do not listen to criticisms, and the community itself is absolutely terrible when it comes to accepting critiques of the game. The upcoming $60 "expansion", which is really just a Season Pass that grants access to all of the updates to be released in 2016, along with the announcement of additional "expansions", also likely $60, is what finally killed it for me. But, if flying around in space is what you want, and you're not willing to wait for No Man's Sky or Star Citizen... I guess it's a good game. For $45, I'd say it's worth it. Just know that you can get more depth by spending $20 on a kiddie pool at your local department store.Show moreShow less
103.1 hours at review1,887 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/14/2026.