Elite was king of space back in the 80's, never has been since...
FE2 was king of
all games, in all genres, as recently as 1993 (best seller that year in the UK)..
FFED3D is still the king of Elite games - no other contender has real, no holds barred spaceflight
and high intensity CQB. It's the combination of basic physics simulation and frenetic arcade action that puts it head and shoulders above all competition.
Pioneer, which is based on
Frontier: Elite, has the simulation aspect, but without the high-power ships, lasers or CQB... or
any real combat at all..
Elite: Dangerous: Horizons: Passengers: Guardians or whatever it's currently up to, doesn't even make the grade as an 'elite-alike' - it has no virtually no spaceflight whatsoever, let alone any basic physics, with no freedom of movement, virtually no combat... it would be unfair to say that it 'fails' as a space sim, since it shuns even the vaguest pretense at any aspect of realism, save for perhaps the locations of stars in its flat, blotchy starbox, but similarly, it also makes no attempt at recreating the arcade action of its predecessors - obviously, the ships lack sufficient freedom of movement to be enable any fun or exciting action in the first place, but there's also no pirate interdictions (i think i've been attacked maybe twice, by lone assailants each time, and was easily able to run away without effort or incident, much less any adrenalin) - it
does have its dedicated CQC mode, and apparently there's some artificial set-piece 'combat zone' instances (although i've never encountered one), but without freedom to directly control the ships, combat is mostly reduced to 1-on-1 slow pitching contest, with maybe a kill every few minutes rather than seconds... There's simply no getting away from it; whereas
Elite's earlier designers carved out their own unique genre, ED's have simply abandoned the traditional gameplay style entirely, and instead brazenly copied that of
X-BTF, with maybe a nod to Oolite - both themselves pale imitations of Elite's playstyle, and lacking any of the innovations and refinements added in FE2 and FFE..
If
Pioneer ever gets fixed beam weapons and high-power ships, FFE could perhaps be finally knocked from its pedestal, but ED isn't even a contender. The most generous thing you could say about it, is that it doesn't even
try, simply bowing to lowest common denominator razzle-dazzle, fruit-machine sound FX, and dishonest marketing... because if it really
was a genuine attempt at an authentic
Elite sequel, it could only be described as a stupendous failure - a game wholly at odds with itself, with every aspect of playstyle that made the earlier games so compelling, compromised into virtual obscurity from their gaming origins; as an
X-BTF tribute, i suppose you could grant that it's at least colourful and noisy... but
whatever it is, it is categorically not
'Elite'; not a simulation, not an arcade shooter, and thus not-at-all fun or enticing to players who actually loved the previous games for precisely those qualities. After decades of wait, the word 'disappointing' doesn't begin to cut it, and outright denial is the only sane coping strategy:
ED is not Elite (fingers in ears, blah blah blah not listening). It just doesn't come close.
So until FD or some smart competitor get their act together and pick up that mantle...
Long live the king! FFED3D remains the bleeding edge, of high-pressure arcade action,
with simulation physics and full, unfettered freedom of movement, to go anywhere and do anything, seamlessly, with fusion-powered battle tanks, in space.
