Ok, I've had a couple of days to vent and think through why this announcement made me so emotional. I believe that the reasons for my anger and sadness is that the announcement created an emotional perfect storm by hitting 3 of my soft spots for this game at once:
1. The announcement kind of implies that EDH is not a game worth spending time on.
2. The announcement confirmes the fear that I have discovered this game too late in its lifespan.
3. The announcement will inevitably lead to the great in game community falling apart.
However, the game isn't gone tomorrow. Fingers crossed they will still keep the Horizons servers for a few years. After all, there are PC players who also play Horizons, either because they can't run Ody, or because they don't need Ody.
And I always knew that I was coming late to the party, having discovered ED only a year ago. Since the ED galaxy isn't stored on my Xbox, but rather on a server somewhere, this game has a definite end of life date, even though we don't know when that is yet. Who knows, if we keep playing we might be able to push back this date.
And finally, I will keep playing this game for as long as possible, simply because this is the game I've always wanted to play. I get to venture into space, fly my very own spaceship. I can go outside my house on a cloudless night, look up at the stars, pick one of them, and then fly there in my space ship in ED. Actually, I'm finally able to visit the shoulder of Orion, something I've dreamed about since watching Blade Runner for the first time.
There's still so much I haven't done in this game. I want to go visit the Dynasty sites, I want to fly to Colonia along the Colonia Bridge. Experience Sag A*, and go all the way to Beagle Point. I want to continue defending my squadrons space from any invaders. And I will enjoy every second of every moment of it.