Elite Dangerous is a visually stunning and frankly gargantuan game. It lets players explore a 1:1 recreation of the Milky Way galaxy, complete with accurate physics and hundreds of billions of stars and planets. Combine that with excellent first-person starship controls, and it is no surprise that some consider it one of the best space games of the last two decades.
While the initial release focused on the big picture, last year’s Odyssey expansion allows Elite Dangerous players to explore the galaxy more closely. Recently, fans got an early look at the soon-to-be-added interiors of Elite Dangerous' colossal fleet carriers.
During the developer livestream on December 16, senior game designer Derin Halil walked fans through alpha footage showcasing the carrier interiors coming with Elite Dangerous: Odyssey’s 11th update early next year. The footage showed off the soon-to-be added interior of one of the game’s Drake-class fleet carriers. These vessels are the largest and most expensive ships in Elite Dangerous, serving as mobile space stations.
The ship interiors include shops, crew quarters, bars, and more giving players areas to buy equipment and upgrades, take missions, or just hang out. It’s also populated with numerous NPCs going about their business. Letting players explore the carrier’s interior will no doubt be a great way to remind them that they aren’t just big ships but more like FTL-capable towns.
The update will also let the carrier’s owners customize the ship’s interior. This includes adding different services through a modular system and changing the carrier’s interior color scheme. The carriers also have a special deck not accessible to regular visitors. This area includes a ready room and the ship’s bridge. It offers a great view of the carrier’s surroundings, and the private deck provides players something akin to their own virtual clubhouse.
Elite Dangerous launched in 2014, stunning players with its unrivaled scale. However, it was also missing a lot of features. Players couldn’t land on or explore planets or even exit their spaceships at launch. Docking with space stations often gave the impression of a vast orbital city, but players could only interact with them through a menu interface in their cockpit. However, this changed with later updates, particularly Elite Dangerous’ massive Odyssey expansion last year.
Elite Dangerous fans who want to check out some of the new features can go to the live stream’s 46:25 mark. Fans should remember that the new content is still in alpha and may not reflect the final version. Update 11 arrives in early 2022, so there may still be time for it to undergo substantial changes. However, what the developers have shown so far should give players plenty of reasons to get excited about the new features in what is already a massive game with hundreds of hours of content.
Elite Dangerous is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.