It’s good to see the developers of a game taking it seriously, and fans of “Elite: Dangerous” can certainly brag about having a truly devoted development team working on their favorite game. Even though it’s been a while without a new update for the game’s pre-release Gamma build, this changed recently with the release of Gamma 1.05. The new update was mostly focused on fixing bugs, but it also rebalanced some parts of the game, while introducing small amounts of new content in certain areas.
People have been complaining about items getting stuck in loading, as well as losing their paint jobs, and both of those problems seem to have been resolved with the last update. In addition, the game has been made more stable, and should prove to be more reliable even under stressful situations with a lot going on.
The release of 1.05 also saw the fix of a critical crash issue, as well as some further balance tweaks and fixes for core flaws of the game. All in all, players have been reporting a much smoother gameplay experience, with the most annoying bugs having been resolved.
The game became known for its original approach to some parts of its gameplay, such as having a star system designed around actual astronomic data, as well as supporting the Oculus Rift fully. The Rift has been getting a lot of attention itself, but critics have been pointing out that the device needs interesting titles to truly attract a lot of people – and it seems that “Elite: Dangerous” is a very strong contender for being one of those important releases.
The developers of the game have decided to take the approach of releasing multiple versions before the game is officially finished, a concept that has been gaining a lot of popularity lately. The only issue with this design style is whether the developer is willing to put sufficient work into the game to keep people impressed until the final release, but it seems that the people behind “Elite: Dangerous” have a very good idea of what they’re doing.
Development of the game is far from finished of course, and more updates are expected to be released before the final version comes out. Fans have so far been very patient with the developers, and most seem to be of the opinion that the game can come out as late as it needs to, as long as it’s released in a properly finished, polished state. If it is indeed a successful release, it could mark the revival of the somewhat dormant genre of space simulations, especially in an age where virtual reality technology is just starting to take ground.