Elite Harmful’ subsequent large replace goes stay on Tuesday, bringing warfare to the billions of digital inhabitants of the Milky Method galaxy. After months of build-up, the sport’s alien race will now start an all-out assault on human occupied house. It’s as much as gamers to decide on easy methods to have interaction with this new gameplay — both weapons blazing, by means of humanitarian missions, or by serving to to resolve the sport’s notoriously complicated in-game puzzles.
The alien race identified to people because the Thargoids first made their look in 2017, about three years after the sport initially launched. Initially, large Thargoid ships pulled gamers out of hyperspace merely to examine them, like big dolphins toying with a swimmer. However these shut encounters finally turned hostile. Quick ahead to August, and humanity’s final finest hope of a brilliant weapon failed — however not earlier than it antagonized the Thargoids into taking drastic steps to make sure their very own security.
Now a brand new risk has emerged, and it appears to be straight focusing on humanity. For weeks now, so-called “stargoids” have been transferring at sooner than gentle pace, with eight of them heading straight for the Bubble — the tiny sphere of populated house with Earth at its core. On Tuesday, these stargoids will lastly decelerate and start their horrible work.
[Warning: What follows will spoil Elite Dangerous’ Update 14 in detail.]
Eight mysterious clouds will arrive within the Bubble beginning on Tuesday, every yet another than 180 km throughout. The clouds will every have a reputation and a marker seen on the tactical show. Gamers will be capable to scan for these markers, goal them, and finally fly inside them. As soon as inside, they’ll be handled to a few of Elite’s gorgeous audio, but in addition to particle and lighting results in contrast to others which have come earlier than.
Throughout a press briefing shared with Polygon final week, we discovered that dozens of mysterious cross-shaped entities reside inside every of those clouds. The entities are propelled by whiffs of the identical inexperienced gasoline wherein they float. Will probably be as much as gamers to check their actions and find out how and why they’ve been despatched to the bubble.
As these clouds go by means of a given star system, they’ll injury and in the end destroy starbases with out participant intervention. Their targets will embrace the biggest constructions within the sport — like Ocellus and Orbis starports. Fight-focused gamers will be capable to camp out at a given starbase and repeatedly do battle with the Thargoids exterior, returning to the touchdown pad solely to refit, refuel, and restore their broken ship. In the meantime, extra humanitarian-focused gamers will be capable to make daring blockade runs with provides, leaving with a cargo maintain full of frightened refugees. Builders anticipate there needs to be a mode of gameplay that appeals to everybody.
“It appears fairly combat-focused, and people are the issues that usually are fairly flashy as properly,” stated lead sport designer Luke Betterton, “however […] the gameplay you can undertake in Elite Harmful continues to be gameplay that’s a part of this upcoming replace as properly. In the event you’re a pure dealer, or for those who’re a bit extra of a form of humanitarian kind, there are avenues in there for you to have the ability to proceed that gameplay as properly. You may simply have a bit extra of a problem coping with it.”
Betterton and senior producer Samantha Marsh harassed that Replace 14, because it’s known as, can be accessible by the complete Elite group — not simply those that bought the current Odyssey growth.
“We have now been extremely targeted on bettering the sport expertise, in ensuring that we have been optimizing, fixing,” Marsh stated, referring to the work accomplished to shore up Odyssey’s buggy launch. “[We have also been] offering gameplay experiences that have been form of bundle experiences — just like the the fleet provider interiors, which we actually wished to develop and develop.
“It seems like the proper time to maneuver in the direction of modifications that aren’t form of self-contained packages. We’re impacting the entire galaxy now. We’re altering how the sport is absolutely present for gamers. […] We really feel prefer it’s a very good second to form of actually present that we’re dedicated to seeing the place we are able to actually push issues and develop areas of the sport as properly.”
Gamers new and previous will be capable to comply with together with the story of the Thargoid invasion of the Bubble, which can be frequently up to date on the in-game information service known as Galnet. Replace 14 additionally brings a brand new tab on the galaxy map that may assist gamers to trace and take part within the battle.
As soon as a multi-platform title with console and Mac purchasers, Elite Harmful’ ongoing narrative is strictly a Home windows PC expertise now. Gamers who beforehand performed on consoles now have the chance for his or her save file to be transferred to PC. You possibly can learn the complete Replace 14 patch notes on the Frontier Growth web site.
