Elite’s getting bigger again, as entire universes tend to do. This time it’s 2.1, nicknamed The Engineers, arriving on May 26 along with a massive patch of fixes and features. The update’s main additions are a crafting and loot system, along with facilitating exploration by planting special vendors in secret locations around the galaxy – finding them (and paying for their services) gives a significant power upgrade.
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A beta has been running since May 5 for the changes, but it’s all being integrated into the main game on the newly announced release date of May 26. Here’s the highlights from the overwhelming change log:
- Loot, crafting and engineers.
- New commodities to support all three.
- Materials for crafting spawn from everything you’d expect – blowing up enemies, scanning and exploring.
- Lots of new effects on weapons, generatable through crafting.
- Modules are also buyable from the various engineers.
- Each also has his own base with new kinds of landing pads and hangars.
- Unlocking them requires going through a series of tasks, at which point they become points on the galaxy map.
- Loads of additions to surfaces, from graphics to places to visit.
That’s just a smattering of what is a humongous series of fixes and additions, as detailed on the Frontier Developments forum. Largest update, indeed.
Game’s £19.99 / $29.99 / €24.99 on Steam, if you’re interested, or £39.99 / €49.99 / $59.99 for the complete edition with major expansion Horizons and some other bits.