Elite Dangerous’ aliens go on the offensive with Update 14, a preview

Elite Dangerous’ next big update goes live on Tuesday, bringing war to the billions of virtual inhabitants of the Milky Way galaxy. After months of build-up, the game’s alien race will now begin an all-out assault on human occupied space. It’s up to players to choose how to engage with this new gameplay — either guns blazing, through humanitarian missions, or by helping to solve the game’s notoriously complex in-game puzzles.

Three years after launch, the Thargoids made their first appearance as an alien race. Initialy, huge Thargoid-sized ships pulled gamers out of hyperspace in order to examine them. It was like giant dolphins playing with a swimmer. However, these encounters became hostile. Fast forward to August, and humanity’s last best hope of a super weapon failed — but not before it antagonized the Thargoids into taking drastic steps to ensure their own safety.

A new threat appears to have emerged and is directly targeting humans. For weeks now, so-called “stargoids” have been moving at faster than light speed, with eight of them heading straight for the Bubble — the tiny sphere of populated space with Earth at its core. These stargoids will slow down on Tuesday and start their horrible work.

[Warning: What follows will spoil Elite Dangerous’ Update 14 in detail.]

Starting Tuesday, eight mysterious clouds will be arriving in the Bubble. Each one is more than 180km across. Each of the eight mysterious clouds will be given a name as well as a tactical marker. The tactical display will enable players to locate these markers and then target them. Finally, they can fly in the clouds. Once inside, they’ll be treated to some of Elite’s stunning audio, but also to particle and lighting effects unlike others that have come before.

We learned last week that there are dozens of strange, cross-shaped entities living within each cloud during a Polygon press conference. These entities can be propelled using whiffs from the same green gases in which they are floating. Players will have to observe their movements to understand how they got to the bubble.

Image: Frontier Developments

These clouds will pass through star systems and damage or destroy starbases. Their targets will include the largest structures in the game — like Ocellus and Orbis starports. The combat-oriented players can camp at any starbase to fight the Thargoids, then return to their landing pads to repair, recharge, or refit their ship. While humanitarian-focused players are able to do daring blockade run with supplies leaving behind a large cargo of terrified refugees, the more combat-oriented ones will still be able. According to developers, there must be a gameplay style that appeals for everyone.

“It looks quite combat-focused, and those are the things that generally are quite flashy as well,” said lead game designer Luke Betterton, “but […]The games you can play in Elite DangerousThis update will also include gameplay. If you’re a pure trader, or if you’re a bit more of a kind of humanitarian type, there are avenues in there for you to be able to continue that gameplay as well. You might just have a bit more of a challenge dealing with it.”

Image: Frontier Developments

Betterton and senior producer Samantha Marsh stressed that Update 14, as it’s called, will be accessible by the entire Elite community — not just those who purchased the recent Odyssey expansion.

“We have been incredibly focused on improving the game experience, in making sure that we were optimizing, fixing,” Marsh said, referring to the work done to shore up Odyssey’s buggy launch. “[We have also been] providing gameplay experiences that were sort of package experiences — like the the fleet carrier interiors, which we really wanted to develop and grow.

Image: Frontier Developments

“It feels like the right time to move towards changes that are not sort of self-contained packages. Our actions are affecting the entire galaxy. We’re changing how the game is really existing for players. […] We feel like it’s a really good moment to sort of really show that we’re committed to seeing where we can really push things and develop areas of the game as well.”

All players can follow the Thargoid invasion and the Bubble’s story. This will continue on Galnet, an in-game news portal. The update 14 adds a tab to the galaxy map which will allow players to follow the story and take part in it.

Once it was a multi-platform title that supported console and Mac clients. Elite Dangerous’ ongoing narrative It is now only available for Windows PC users. Players that have previously used consoles can now transfer their saved files to a PC. The Frontier Development website contains the complete Update 14 patch notes.