Ah, that special day in any game with a colon in its name's life - when it releases its first expansion, and with it its first dash. Welcome, Frontier, to the hallowed ranks of the :- club. Now you too will be a nightmare for proof-readers and CMS tag databases the world over.
But wait just one gosh-darn cotton-pickin' minute: something strange has happened. Elite: Dangerous [official site] has quietly changed its name to Elite Dangerous, and thus the expansion is known simply as Elite Dangerous: Horizons. THOSE AREN'T THE RULES FRONTIER YOU'RE OUT OF THE :- CLUB
Elite; Dangerous #Horiz-on$ is out today, anyway.
Horizons is in fact an umbrella name for a series of mini-expansions, each of which adds a theoretically major new feature to the star trekking/fighting/trading game, and kicking off with planetary exploration. Further down the line, we'll be getting a new looting and crafting system, multi-crew ships and commander avatar creation. As of today, one controversial price gets you the lot as and when it's released, with a selection of "1:1 scale worlds" and a Scarab SRV wheeled vehicle available from the get-go.
Frontier describe it thusly: "an unprecedented, vast new experience that lets you journey seamlessly from space to any point on the surfaces of accurately simulated planets and moons throughout Elite Dangerous’ multi-player, cut-throat, full scale re-creation of the 34th century Milky Way galaxy."
Looks like they've entirely abandoned describing this as in any way a singleplayer game, then.
This part of Horizons has been in beta since the end of the last month, but now flings the doors open to anyone via both E:D's ED:H's own store and Steam Early Access. Yep, they're calling it Early Access, what with only part of Horizons being out so far.
Elite Dangerous: Horizons - Launch Trailer Watch on YouTube
And this brings me to why the stealth rename is not just jolly grammatical funtimes: Elite Dangerous: Horizons is, in fact, a whole new base game. Despite how many times I've used the word 'expansion' in this post, actually anyone who already owns E:D can't simply pay a small fee to upgrade it, but instead they have to buy the new edition in its entirety. Yep, it's the Destiny: The Taken King model - the way that made old players have to pay almost as much for the add-on as new players buying the complete package did drew a ton of heat of Bungie's way, but they got away with it because Destiny is enormous. Whether Elite is big enough to weather a similar grumble-storm remains to be seen.
Proponents of the biz model argue that it's essentially paying an annual fee in order to receive every feature of an ongoing, MMO-like game, and on that basis yeah, you're paying significantly less than you would for a year of WoW. ED:H is nominally £39.99, though it's currently available to existing E:D owners for £29.99, a 25% discount. It still seems like a lot for an expansion, but then again it is a sort of ongoing expansion - and Blizzard get away with charging similar for new StarCraft II packs. And, of course, space game fans have very much set a precedent for reaching ever-deeper into their wallets.
Olden times Elite: Dangerous, meanwhile, will continue to exist and receive some updates, so it's not like you're not kicked out of the universe if you don't upgrade, plus the essential flying/fighting in space aspect is not at all dependent on having Horizons. Which is the only thing that stopped me from titling this post 'Elite: Dangerous is dead, long live Elite Dangerous: Horizons.'
I can't even slightly remember how to play ED, but I'm definitely tempted to blow the dust off my flight stick (hello nurse) and try out a bit of planetary landing. Anyone else going in?
