Elite Dangerous: Horizons Preview

It would be wrong to call Elite Dangerous: Horizons an expansion, it is better described as Frontier put it “a Second Season”. No doubt this is what has caused it to be available to owners of Elite: Dangerous as a Steam season pass as well as a separate product for those yet to dip their toes into the inky blackness between the stars or who just flat out don’t like Steam. Continuing on from the original release, this new version adds in a few welcome extras, not least colourising the UI so that hostiles appear as red, friendlies as green, and neutrals as amber.

Of course, the big ticket item is… planetary landings! Fitting out your shiny new ship (there are several new ones to try including the Mark IV versions of the Cobra and Vulture) with a Surface Reconnaissance Vehicle hangar and a planetary approach package, you can enter orbital cruise mode by approaching your planet of choice and then heading for the surface. The transition from one to the other is nice and smooth, with the procedurally generated surface coming up smoothly. Once down, you can drop to your SRV, start your engines, and putter about on the surface to your heart’s content. Once you are bumbling about, gravity plays a role on how easy it is to get about with the SRV and on low grav planets expect to find yourself upside down like Richard Hammond in a Vauxhall Nova if you corner too sharply at speed. SRVs with their wheels in the air make it rather hard to get to planetary bases, which are also an addition in Season Two. One quick hint, the SRV is a little squishy and high security bases have big guns that get annoyed if you shoot at the buildings “to see what happens”. Should you not choose the suicidally silly course, they are effectively the same as the orbital stations you are already familiar with.

On the way, we have loot, crafting, multiple crew members, customised commander avatars (so you can make that Nathan Fillion clone you’ve been wanting all this time), and ship launched fighters to act as combat air patrols for larger ships.

One criticism that was aimed at the first season of content was that the game was “a mile wide and an inch deep” meaning the game lacked perceived depth. Although Elite Dangerous: Horizons doesn’t provide a massive immediate increase in content per se, it does expand on the existing mechanics (political intrigue amongst galactic powers, co-operative efforts from players etc.) in a way that provides more for the ordinary pilot to do.

As with the previous release, this early access Elite has over Four Hundred Billion stars to explore of every hue imaginable. As you flit from star to star you will trigger random encounters of various types as with E:D, but the consistency of these has been much improved. It’s not perfect as yet, it’s still a little on the clunky side and that damned wedding ship still spams you with its desire to invite you to some idiots nuptials, but it is slowly improving.

So far, Elite Dangerous: Horizons has taken steps to increase the perceived lack of depth some saw in Season One, it will be up to the rest of the season content to continue the trend and I will be continuing this preview as a series, covering the newer features as they come down the pipe.