Frontier have laden Kickstarter backers with Elite: Dangerous’ second phase alpha – the headline feature of which is multiplayer dogfighting tomfoolery. Competitive pewing comes in four shrinkwrapped flavours: free-for-all melee, team melee, co-op defence, and Pirates and Bounty Hunters. You can see some of that happening in this here video.
“This is an incredibly exciting and important phase in the development of Elite: Dangerous,” said chief Elitist David Braben.
“Player stat tracking, the multiplayer networking code and associated management are all big new systems that are being tested with Phase 2.0, plus it’s the first time we’ll be able to test how the game mechanics perform with significant numbers of players all playing simultaneously.”
In the video below, a chipper Braben discusses the modes, as well as his first killing at the hands of a hotshot backer.
Executive producer Michael Brookes then goes on to talk about credits, earned by defeating opponents and “involving yourself” in the various multiplayer scenarios.
There’ll be two more alpha releases of this sort before nu-Elite enters a premium beta arrangement. That shuddering, glistening cockpit is still a wonder, isn’t it?
Thanks, Eurogamer.