The day is finally here, Elite Dangerous fans. The release date for the space flight simulation game’s enormous upcoming expansion Odyssey has been announced as May 19 for players on our home platform, with Xbox and PlayStation versions for our friends on console coming later in the year in the autumn.
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey – which was announced back in June last year and has recently seen players getting stuck into its multi-stage alpha – will bring on-foot exploration to the space game for the very first time. Frontier describes it as “the most ambitious Elite Dangerous expansion to-date” in a press release, and alongside this new level of gameplay, it’ll bring new missions, “intense tactical combat”, and a bunch of other new features to the 2014 game.
Odyssey players will get to customise their characters through various options for specialist gear and spacesuits, which are suited to the different (new) missions and challenges. For salvage missions there’s a Remlok Maverick scavenger suit, for example, while others – such as the Supratech Artemis explorer and Manticore Dominator combat suits are ideal for exobiology investigation and Conflict Zone combat, respectively.
There’ll also be a new social gameplay layer added with the expansion in the form of social hubs. From here, you can plan your next adventures with other players, and tend to other bits like picking up and upgrading kit.
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey is priced at £29.99 / $39.99 / €34.99 on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and the Frontier Store.
However, there’s also a deluxe alpha expansion pack still available, which costs £39.99 / $54.99 / €46.99. This will give you access to the ongoing alpha – which ends April 30 – and the expansion’s soundtrack. Pre-ordering either will get you an “exclusive Pioneer suit skin”.