Mismanagement Killed the Cat

Elite Dangerous Will Be a Dead Game by 2024

The recent “Odyssey” expansion highlights the fundamental flaws of Elite Dangerous and Frontier Developments. The seven-year-old game will probably not live till its tenth birthday.

Screenshot from Elite Dangerous Odyssey, taken by the author.

I wish you could prove me wrong. The good days are over. Elite Dangerous will probably only go downhill from here.

So far, I have spent more than 64 days (1540 hours) of my life sitting in front of my computer playing Elite Dangerous. I did everything the game had to offer. Whether I wanted to hunt down some space pirates, trade some commodities for a profit, or explore the vast and empty galaxy to find some earth-like worlds and black holes — I could, and I did.

In these 64 days of my life, I kept on repeating the same game loop over and over again. Grinding. Day in, day out. Most of the time, I had a clear goal in mind. Sometimes, I just wanted to enjoy the scenery and relax.

The Appeal of Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous tickles the fantasies of every science-fiction lover. You can command your own spaceship. You can traverse the stars, fight for what’s right on a galactic scale, hunt down pirates, and explore the galaxy — or become a pirate yourself if you so desire. Nothing is stopping you from taking your ship, heading towards the galactic center, and never returning to civilization again. You have that freedom.

It’s just you and unexplored space. You are alone. You are the first. An explorer into the truly unknown.

It’s exactly this sensation that got me hooked in the first place. The atmosphere, the immersion, the exploration. And it was wonderful for me. The first few hundred hours were played within mere weeks.

Asteroid mining in Elite Dangerous with a large ship, screenshot by the author.

A lot of gamers, myself included, have yearned for a realistic space simulation. Something where you cannot “just” pilot a fighter…