In three days, Elite will be 30 years old. Games half that age are called old, so that must make Elite antediluvian. Elite: Dangerous dev Frontier Developments will be doing some celebrating, but separate from that, an unofficial remastered version of the original will be available for free.
Programmer Christian Pinder put together the remake, Elite: The New Kind, back in ‘99, but copyright issues meant that it was taken down. With the birthday incoming, however, Elite co-designer Ian Bell has supported its return.
“20th September 1984 was the date that Elite was first seen by the world, thanks to the company that produced it, Acornsoft,” said Bell. “Now’s a time when people are thinking back on the games they most enjoyed in the past, and I’m happy to take this opportunity to let them play one of them again.”
This remake is close to the original, but contains bits and pieces from superior versions. It might be the very best way to experience the iconic game.
“Elite: The New Kind is based much more closely on the first version of game,” Bell explained. “It incorporates elements from other versions that are considered the best, such as for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Acorn Archimedes.”
“The programmer Christian Pinder has done a great job of recreating the Elite gameplay experience. I hope it’ll bring back good memories to those who loved the game first time around, and help new players understand what made Elite so significant in the history of computer games.”
Last week, we found out how much Elite: Dangerous would cost at launch, and what exactly would be contained within the special pre-order and backer version of the game. We’ve said many lovely things about the early access version, and our Steve posted an Elite: Dangerous beta review last month.
You’ll be able to download Elite: The New Kind on September 20th from Ian Bell’s extremely old school website. However, since Pinder released the source code back before he was asked to stop distributing the remake in 2002, you can download it elsewhere now.
Cheers, VG24/7.