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Elite Dangerous update 13 ushers in a new phase of the alien threat

An anti-Thargoid weapon has gone disastrously wrong, and Elite Dangerous update 13 kicks off a new narrative chapter called Aftermath

Elite Dangerous Update 13: Aftermath: A pilot steers her ship through an asteroid field

When Elite Dangerous players log into the space game starting today, they’ll witness the catastrophic results of the Proteus Wave – a superweapon designed to wipe out the menacing Thargoids who have threatened the galaxy since their arrival. Elite Dangerous update 13 kicks off a new chapter in the story called Aftermath – and it looks like there are a lot of pieces to pick up.

As you can see in the trailer below, Salvation’s attempts to wipe out the Thargoids in one fell swoop have gone disastrously wrong. If you head to the system HIP 22460, you’ll find the wreckage of the Bright Sentinel and Heart of Taurus megaships in the anti-xeno conflict zones near where the Proteus Wave was activated. Salvation, for his part, is missing in action.

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You’ll want to be on your toes, however: those conflict zones are full of Thargoids, and any Guardian technology you have installed on your ship will be compromised in that system. Modules will decay rapidly and may even be destroyed.

Aftermath is a new chapter in Elite Dangerous’ storyline, with the Azimuth saga now concluded – rather tragically, we might add. However, there’s plenty of bright light on the horizon. Frontier has revealed plans to bring all Elite Dangerous players up to the 4.0 code base that powers Elite Dangerous: Odyssey.

The base game currently sits in version 3.8, whilst the 4.0 version that Odyssey uses has seen a host of improvements over the past years, as well as an overall graphical enhancement. In the near future, Frontier says it will detail its plans to unify both code bases under 4.0. You’ll still need to own Odyssey to experience any on-foot content in the upcoming story, but the other overall enhancements made to the game in 4.0 will soon be available to all players on PC.