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’Elite Dangerous: Beyond’ Chapter One arrives on February 27th
If you've been eagerly waiting for the third season of Elite Dangerous, your time has almost come. Today, Frontier Developments announced that the first chapter of the new season of the space MMORPG, called Beyond, will arrive on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on February 27th. The company also released a trailer for the third season, which you can see below.
Visit NASA's newly discovered planets in 'Elite: Dangerous'
Sadly, it's unlikely that you'll ever visit the Trappist-1 system's newly-discovered Earth-sized planets in your lifetime... not unless someone develops near-light speed travel, anyway. However, you'll at least have the option of a virtual tour. Frontier Developments is promising Ars Technica that the second Elite: Dangerous version 2.3 beta will let you visit Trappist-1 and its seven worlds. The developers are really just modifying an existing system in a similar location (Core Sys Sector XU-P a5-0), but that still means that you'll get a rough sense of what it would be like. You'll get to land on at least some of them, two of which will be Earth-like.
Space-sim 'Elite: Dangerous' comes to Xbox One on October 6th
We're still not sure when No Man's Sky is coming to PS4, but in the meantime Xbox One fans have their own slice of space exploration nirvana to look forward to. Elite: Dangerous has been out on PC for some time, and since June it's also been available to Xbox players as part of the Xbox Game Preview program. Now, creator Frontier Developments has confirmed that the full console version will be launching on October 6th. The game is incredibly immersive, with an enormous galaxy and beautifully designed ships to pilot. The vast, empty nature of space comes with its drawbacks, however -- if you're expecting an endless stream of dogfights and nail-biting supply runs, you might be disappointed. The first in a series of "Horizons" expansions is due on PC this holiday, adding planetary landings, but it's unclear exactly when it'll make the lightspeed jump to Xbox One.
E3 Streams: 'Volume,' 'Fortnite,' 'Elite: Dangerous,' and more!
Onward into E3 2015! Our week in Los Angeles has left us wild and crazed. We interviewed the director of the Final Fantasy VII remake. We played Star Fox Zero. Now we're going to give you a chance to talk to the developers of some of E3's biggest games right here on JXE Streams. Join us starting at at 12:30PM ET/9:30AM PT on Twitch.tv/Joystiq for a chance to chat with developers like Epic Games, Elite: Dangerous creator David Braben, and a special early look at Volume with Mike Bithell.
Daily iPad App: LostWinds
I really enjoyed LostWinds when it came out on the Wii a couple of years ago -- it's a physics-based platformer, essentially, but the twist is that you don't just control a really beautifully rendered little kid named Toku wandering around a very artistic world, you also control the wind spirit that can push him and various objects in the environment around. On the Wii, this was accomplished with an on-screen cursor and a swing of the Wii remote, but on the iPad and iPhone, it's accomplished with a swipe across the screen. As a result, this version seems less tactile and a little less control-intensive, which I'm not convinced is necessarily a negative, just different. On the Wii version, for example, you could move the joystick and press a button to get Toku to jump, and then swipe across the screen at exactly the right time to carry him with a gust. On the iPad, however, you just need to swipe him around (and more often than not, I found myself just pushing him around with the wind rather than just controlling him by tapping on the screen). That might destroy a little bit of the game's atmosphere, but honestly, the atmosphere is strong enough (with a really great artistic palette and some excellent musical backing) that it can handle a little playfulness. While the game has the same strengths of the Wii title, it also suffers from some of its weaknesses: It's relatively short, and the puzzles aren't really too tough to figure out. Unfortunately (unless they've hidden it really well), Frontier Developments hasn't included the sequel that arrived on the Wii in this release, so presumably it'll come out on iOS later on. Then again, at only $3.99 for a universal version, the game's priced much more reasonably than the $10 it cost me when it came out on the Wii. LostWinds is a really excellent title, and the game's wind-based physics have been translated quite well to iOS with this one. If you never got to play through it the first time on WiiWare, you probably shouldn't let it breeze by you this time around.
Wii platformer LostWinds coming to iOS
I really enjoyed the Wii game LostWinds, released a few years ago as a downloadable title on Nintendo's popular home console. So I'm excited to hear that the developer, Frontier Developments, is planning to bring the original game over to the iPhone and the iPad, as well as the Android platform. The game features a little protagonist named Toku, who can either move around the beautiful cel-shaded world himself, or have the wind, managed with motion controls, help him get little boosts and support. On the iOS version, Toku will apparently be moved via an on-screen touchpad, and of course the motion controls will be replaced with swiping and gestures. Sounds fun. The game also had a sequel called "Winter of the Melodias," though it appears this initial release is just for the first title. The game is expected out on the App Store later on this year.
