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Elite's premium beta starts today, expands May 30
Frontier has announced that the premium beta for Elite: Dangerous "effectively starts today." Backers may download a single-player combat build and play around with it until the full testing phase starts on May 30th. Prior to that, the devs will roll out the fourth and final phase of Elite's alpha, wherein the sci-fi sandbox title will expand with two new modes of faster-than-light travel as well as the full Milky Way galactic map featuring 400,000,000,000 star systems. You can read the full press release after the jump. [Source: Frontier press release]
Elite's 3.0 alpha is here, as is docking and a new video
Frontier has officially released version 3.0 of the Elite: Dangerous alpha. If you've backed Elite or bought alpha access previously, you can update your client immediately and begin testing the new update. "After successfully proving out the moment-to-moment combat gameplay and multiplayer technology in Alpha phases one and two respectively, phase three starts to move towards building out the game by adding docking, an early version of hyperspace jumps between multiple locations, and ship outfitting within an iconic Coriolis space station," explains the latest Elite press release. The firm has also released a 3.0 trailer, which you can view along with the full press release after the break.
Here's an Elite: Dangerous alpha preview
If you're curious about the Elite: Dangerous alpha but don't have an extra £200 lying about, Rock, Paper Shotgun's preview article is likely the next best thing. The first impressions are largely positive, though they're gleaned from a tiny slice of Frontier's sprawling procedurally generated space sandbox. The alpha is basically a linear series of combat missions, see. So you'll have to content yourself with voluminous amounts of prose devoted largely to the game's aesthetic. That said, the article does conclude that "sci-fi dogfighting this good is a rare treat."
Elite's multiplayer alpha coming next week
Frontier has released its 16th development newsletter for Elite: Dangerous. In it, the company says that phase two of the space sim's alpha is undergoing internal testing right now. Next week, alpha backers will be able to download it, which is sort of a big deal since phase two equals multiplayer! Beta is on the horizon, though there's no firm date just yet. "After next week's alpha 2.0 we still have two major alpha releases to roll out before we reach the premium beta stage: Outfitting, Travel and Trading." We've embedded the latest Elite video dev diary after the break, and you can click through the links below to read the full newsletter.
Elite: Dangerous alpha starts today
If you're an Elite: Dangerous backer, you'll be pleased to know that the space sim title is officially in alpha as of today. Frontier has released an announcement video wherein developer David Braben outlines what players can expect. In a nutshell, the alpha entails single-player combat, including different weapons, loadouts, battles, and more. Frontier says that the aim of its phase one alpha is to "test key aspects of ship control and combat systems. Piloting a Sidewinder with varying weapon configurations, players progress through eight single-player scenarios [that are] initially designed to familiarize players with the controls [while] gradually increasing in difficulty and complexity.
