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More Elite Dangerous Horizons Release Details Arrive

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After months of teases and discussion there are new Elite Dangerous Horizons release details to consider. This week developer Frontier confirmed some new release details for the game. That includes some unsavory news for owners of Microsoft’s Xbox One entertainment console.

Frontier revealed the new Elite Dangerous Horizons release details this week in a press release sent to Gotta Be Mobile. Elite Dangerous is a trading and adventure game set in space. There are ships to command, generated star systems to explore and more. Elite Dangerous Horizons is a massive expansion for the base copy of the game that adds a new first-person shooting mechanic. The game first arrived on the Xbox One in June when Microsoft and Frontier revealed it was coming to the console. It left the game preview program for Xbox One last December.

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Frontier doesn’t describe the Elite Dangerous Horizons release is a massive expansion, but as a season of new updates coming over time. Previously, players could explore the galaxy and mine for resources. The first feature that Elite Dangerous Horizons adds are Planetary Landings. Beginning with this update, players can explore physical words with their own physics and geography. There should be a lot of planets to visit with the Planetary Landings update, Elite Dangerous Horizons spans the entire galaxy. Players roam these worlds in a new lander.

Listed as coming soon for Elite Dangerous Horizons owners are customization options for looting and crafting, the ability to have more than just a single crew on star ships, a creation tool for each player’s character and carrier ships that can launch small fighters in combat situations. Frontier hasn’t said exactly when these pieces of new content will arrive, just that they are a part of the Elite Dangerous Horizons package and won’t cost players any extra.

Launching separately is Elite Dangerous 1.5, which adds some ships and includes, 300 improvements and support for Steam VR. This update is available on PC Mac and Xbox One, which highlights the bad news for Xbox One owners. Steam VR is a virtual reality headset that’s expected to launch in the coming year. Elite Dangerous will still get updates even as the newer game gets features.

A new trailer for Elite Dangerous Horizons begins with scenes of the moon being explored. As video cuts to different planets in our own Solar System, audio from former President John F Kennedy’s famous speech announcing that Americans would set foot on the moon can be heard. In the next scene there are spacecraft landing on distant worlds, releasing SUV-sized rovers for players to explore in.

It seems that this week’s Elite Dangerous Horizons release is specifically for PC gamers. Its available through Steam and Frontier’s website only today. Frontier is only confirming that it’ll have more to say about Elite Dangerous Horizons for Xbox One and “other formats” in the future. Theoretically, that means Xbox One owners can forget about getting the game before 2016.

It’s not getting a lot of attention, but Elite Dangerous is a huge leg up for Microsoft. To stoke sales of their consoles and accessories, both Microsoft and Sony routinely sign contracts with developers and publishers that limit titles to their platform. Elite Dangerous is one of the games that Microsoft has signed a deal for. The Xbox One is the only console to offer Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous and Elite Dangerous Horizons can’t be purchased in store. The Xbox Store has Elite Dangerous available for $37.49. When it does arrive in the Xbox Store Elite Dangerous Horizons will cost $59.99, if the game’s Steam listing is indicative of the publisher’s plans for other formats.

Players don’t need the original game to play Horizons, but all of their progress does transfer over.

19 Comments

19 Comments

  1. Redditor

    12/17/2015 at 1:12 am

    Your article writing sucks. It’s like you’ve made independent sentences and pasted them all together.

    • suzzie

      12/19/2015 at 6:10 am

      show me your write up please and everyone can criticise you :)

  2. Antoniopreed

    12/17/2015 at 7:56 am

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    • Anti-Spam

      01/22/2016 at 11:52 am

      Stop spamming people, you’re a moron and I’m going to find out who you are and report you for spamming.

  3. Red Wolf

    12/18/2015 at 5:34 am

    It’s almost as if you didn’t do any research. I can’t be bothered to cite all the mistakes you have made. Please work more on your next article.

    • suzzie

      12/19/2015 at 6:10 am

      show me your write up please and everyone can criticise you :)

      • courperationX

        12/22/2015 at 10:57 am

        Seeing as how you’re copying/pasting the same comment to everyone who criticizes you, even fairly and constructively, I’ll gladly accept your challenge. While I don’t have all the answers (partially thanks to your article being the first result and containing information that’s clearly false), I also won’t attempt to act as if I do. I will however give correct information where I have it in my response article. However my article won’t be about Elite Dangerous: Horizons specifically, it will be an article in response to and based on yours. Because as I mentioned, I don’t know everything I’d like to about the expansion because of the roadblock that is your article.

        When reading content on the internet, people often seem to forget that people from all over the world are using the same venue for communication, and commonly criticize people for not properly writing the English language. What they fail to realize is: That more often than not, English is not the native language of the person they’re criticizing. It’s a healthy practice to always assume that the comment you’re reading may be written by someone from a country who’s language is something other than English. However, I would make the recommendation to anyone attempting to write an official article in a secondary language to both: get a lot of practice with the language, and to acquire a English speaking individual to edit your work. A similar suggestion can be made to someone who’s native language is English, but simply isn’t the best writer. Asking people to review your work is always a good practice in any field.

        English being a second language is not in any way shape or form an excuse for poor investigative work before you write your article however. If you can’t be bothered to click on the first Google search result for the item in question, then you have no business reporting on it. It’s the equivalent to a blind person reporting on the colored paper right in front of them, it simply doesn’t work, and it makes you look like a fool. Because odds are, the people who are dedicated enough to read the entirety of your niche article know the first thing about the content you’re writing about. For example, an avid fan of a video game would know when their game simply can’t be purchased for an Apple computer.

        Even worse, is when an author is so clearly lazy, that they say something at the closing of their article that not only contradicts what was stated earlier in the very same article, but both sentences also convey completely false information. I will now cite the two sentences which do just that: “Elite Dangerous Horizons is a massive expansion for the base copy of the game that adds a new first-person shooting mechanic.” “Players don’t need the original game to play Horizons, but all of their progress does transfer over.”

        While first person shooting is a mechanic in which the game’s director David Braben hopes to one day add to the game, it hasn’t even been mentioned in relation to Elite Dangerous: Horizons. And Horizons, in itself, is an expansion, not a stand alone release. The base game Elite Dangerous is indeed required to play it, as it is an “expansion”, the answer to the question is in the very word used to describe it. To add to that, the matter of Horizons not being stand alone isn’t up for debate, it’s a simple fact. Elite Dangerous: Horizons does however launch with the ability to land on airless planets, on which players can then explore to their heart’s content. They can take part in many activities ranging from planetary mining, to base infiltration and sabotage.

        You were also correct in the declaration of the many customization options that will be coming in this season of expansions. However, you blew that track record right in the middle of it when you also claimed that players will be able to have “more than a single crew”. That’s completely false. This is the first time players can have a crew at all, and they cannot have more than one. And that crew can only be comprised of friends that join your game.

        There are numerous more little things I could pick at, but I believe I’ve made my point clear. I’d like to close on the note that challenging people to a writing duel is merely a distraction from the fact that your article is indeed atrocious, and a bad one at that. As you can see, accepting the challenge didn’t stop me from criticizing. It also holds no context to the point, and is irrelevant. Someone else failing to write an article doesn’t mean yours is good, it’s a moot point no matter the result. All they did was call you out for poor grammar and false information, both are indisputable fact, not opinion. Most of them were rather polite about it too, the worst was only mildly offensive. If you can’t take constructive criticism on the internet, you should probably stop now, because it only goes downhill from there. Ignoring constructive criticism in exchange for pointless avoidance also does nothing to help you, and does everything to hinder you. By doing so, you fail yo learn from your mistake, and become better at your trade. While ignoring useless, baseless, and rude criticism is a healthy practice, you should thrive on receiving helpful constructive criticism that details your mistakes in a polite manner so that you may improve in a healthy creative environment. That’s just how it hurts your growth as a writer, I shouldn’t even have to explain how such a counter productive response to legitimate criticism hurts your reputation as a reporter. Absolutely no one will listen to anything you have to say if that’s how you respond to a statement of fact. Putting a smiley on the end doesn’t make your reaction any less narcissistic.

        There, I played your little challenge. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, then you’re not getting anywhere in life. I should also add this: I dare you to find any factual or literary error. My article is here for everyone to criticize.

        Oh yeah, and this was the Google search result right after yours, meaning it was the first before your wrote your article. Which means, you could have very easily found it if you had bothered to do the slightest amount of research: https://community.elitedangerous.com/node/247

        • courperationX

          12/22/2015 at 11:00 am

          Also, indentation and separation are very important aspects of writing. You should really allow them so that your article and the responses you asked for don’t look like a jumbled mess.

      • courperationX

        01/15/2016 at 1:14 am

        I can’t help but notice you made some serious edits to this since my comment, here I’m wishing I took a screen shot in case you decide to act like that didn’t happen. That said, if your intention in changing it was genuine and not you just sweeping it all under the rug, then you deserve some praise for that. Not everyone is willing to suck it up and fix their mistake. I have a few gripes with it still, in fact it looks like you just took what people told you and ran with it. That’s not a bad thing, but you should’ve done more of your own research as well because things no one touched on are still incorrect. But it’s so much better than it was before, I find it hard to complain. I didn’t even think it was the same article until I scrolled down and saw all the comments were still there.

        That said, it would be nice to see a comment reply or an edit to your article mentioning the edit. If for no other reason than for us to know that you’re actually taking the honorable route and not just trying to pretend you never made a mistake. And if you are taking the honorable route, I would be happy to offer help with future articles, maybe help you avoid making the same mistakes in the future, give tips, edit, etc. I’m not even gonna ask for a job or something, I’d honestly just like to help a brother out. So if you’re just honestly correcting the mistake and taking people’s advice, keep it up. If you’re trying to act like it never happened, people noticed, it’s not helping. That’s partly why I recommend you say something about it. That way people know it was changed for the right reasons and can’t even try to say otherwise without looking the fool.

  4. blippo

    12/20/2015 at 5:11 pm

    Elite dangerous is not available on Mac as it does not support the type of shading technology that Elite utilizes.

    • RF

      12/25/2015 at 3:40 pm

      Err – what? While there may or may not be some truth in your comment in respect of shading I’ve been playing E:D on a mac, along with a shed load of other people, for quite a long time… If you mean to refer to the Horizon’s expansion then I’d like to hear more detail about these shading issues. My Mac has the same high end GFX card a lot of people use in PCs, so what is missing exactly? Got any citations or more info?

    • JuMo

      12/25/2015 at 9:07 pm

      So I went and did a little more research, because misinformation or half-information just causes more noise around the REAL answer:

      HORIZONS (Only Horizons, NOT the Elite Dangerous base game) uses OpenGL ‘compute shaders’ to keep performance under control during planetary interaction. Currently, OSX OpenGL doesn’t support ‘compute shaders’, so until Apple releases an update to their OpenGL that adds support for compute shaders, Mac users will have to wait. The problem is, who knows if Apple even cares enough to write an OpenGL update (it basically only services gamers at this time).

      What this means is that Elite Dangerous works fine with Mac, but Horizons does NOT and will not until (if ever) there is compute shaders support in OpenGL for OSX.

  5. Le Redditor

    12/21/2015 at 8:52 am

    Ok, here are some problems with this article. I’d add more but this article is burning my eyes out:
    1. There is no “new lander”. There are the ships that land on the planets, but these are the same ships you have been able to fly around for a while, or have been added in the 1.5 patch, which is different from 2.0 but released concurrently (technically there is a new lander, the Cobra mkIV, but you fail to mention that). An SRV is not a lander.
    2. How are 1.5 and 2.0 both launching? To the casual reader this makes no sense-please elaborate on it and explain ED’s season of content system-in which you could introduce some of the upcoming or released Horizons features.
    3. There should be no “it seems that” in your writing. You’re writing a news article, not a speculative piece.
    4. What do you mean when you write it’s not available in the store? It’s available at FD’s store. Please don’t be vague.
    5.This article is as disjointed as hell: what’s the point of it? Are you talking about present ED Horizons features, future ED Horizons features or how Xbox benefits from ED not being on the PS4 (even though it doesn’t have Horizons)?
    6. What do you mean by the title? ED Horizons has been out for a while now. These are not “release details”, unless you mean future update details, which is different. Please stop being vague.
    7. Have you ever heard of complex or compound-complex sentences? You should try using some, because this article reads like shit.
    8. Stop being a dick and attacking people in comments. They didn’t write an article, and you trying to attack them doesn’t conceal the fact that this article is shit-they don’t need to show you any writing and that you’d demand they do is ridiculous.
    9. Players do need to have the base game to play Horizons.
    Ok, I could continue with your use of the release trailer, more disinformation, etc. but I won’t. Good luck and please learn how to write.

  6. Micheal Qualls

    12/23/2015 at 7:16 am

    What is wrong with you guys? Go back to bullying kids in the school yard. The guy wrote an article, not a book.

    • RF

      12/25/2015 at 3:42 pm

      Hmm – I could take your point if it was just about grammar or sentence construction, but an article written as fact when it is easily found to be inaccurate is poor show, and I believe the readers of articles that do this should call it out for the benefit of others.

  7. Shuggie

    01/04/2016 at 12:46 am

    Michael i completely agree with your coment the guy wrote a review on what he believed where does that mean he should be tried convicted and burned as a witch i would like to see what some of these people do for a living probably nothing but sit n play computer games most are probably 12 year old kids who only want to critisize everything if people would instead of critisizing maybe aplaud the guy for bringing to the attention of the fact yes e d is a good game but the initial description of the game is missleading at best i purchased this game on a tv revies coment and the websites description of the game and to be fair yes the game is good but not what was described and that was by people being paid to review games this guy i assume is being paid nothing and he hit on the fact that yes the game is there to purchase but basically its a demo without the expansion pack which again you need to pay the same price as the game you have just purchased in order to play the game you expected to play to begin with i think this guy should be encouraged to keep reviewing games on the basis he is a consumer not a seller and as such he is bringing to the surface of greedy companys expecting you to pay £25 for basicaly a demo until you pay for the expansion and yes before anyone critisizes my spelling i know its probably not the best but I DONT PROFESS TO BE THE BEST SPELLER IN THE WORLD and neither did the guy writing the article profess to be the best reviewer in the universe either thank you and goodnight

  8. Shuggie

    01/04/2016 at 1:11 am

    Furthermore the game i describe as a demo simply because on xbox 1 you can not land on planets you can not get out the system you start in because you are given the messege cannot initiate fsd insifitint fuel the destination requires more than 0.60 tons of fuel so basicaly you are stuck to about 10 planets you cant even land on and 10 is a mayb also the cqc part is a waste of time as no one is ever on it and there for there is no connection also there is no single player mode in the cqc so why even bother going to it if you cant get connected and theres no way to play it so 400 billion planets more like 10 multiplayer cqc i think not planet landings and survaying planets is a no go so for £25 i advise people to stay away from the game until its released as a full game and not just a demo and at a price that isnt expecting you to pay double what is stated for a game less than 10% of what is described

  9. Shuggie

    01/04/2016 at 4:28 am

    Now for my admition, after playing this game for some time i have descuvered that, yes although i was corrct about not being able to land on planets as yet, i stated that there is not much to do as you could not get out of the small system you wer in and there was only a small amount of planets you could survay, well i have just descuvered that if you state a designated system and plan your route you just need to follow the way points on that planned route, so i have descuvered about 15 diff systems on route to the sol system which if you know anything about stellar cartography sol is our system with earth and mars and the rest so the game has a kind of star trek voyager to it in the sense you are thousands upon thousands of light years from earth and have to plot a course home and on the way there are loads to discover you dont allways have to dock at a station to refuel as if you install a fuel scoop you can just orbit a star and refuel from its solar energy, but beware as the heat damage you take can force you to have to dock to repair your ship also some systems have white dwarf stars and giant red dieing stars that so far i have not been able to refuel from and some have no stations or outposts so you will have to make sure you have enough fuel to traverse to the nearest system with either a normal sun or a space dock to repair or refuel all in all i am starting to see this game as an episode of voyager and see the game as being huge but you need to be patient to learn the game or you would become bored very quickly

  10. Trav

    02/12/2016 at 2:21 am

    Shuggie. Have you tried going to your nav computer and then hitting galaxy mapping and plotting a route to a different system? I’m currently 139 light years from lhs 3447 which was my starting system. But watch your fuel when jumping long range .Invest in a fuel scoop or do some trading and go to a larger ship. Saying the base game on Xbox is a demo is hilarious because it’s untrue. You just haven’t figured out the system

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