I want to start out by saying that I'm probably extremely biased towards Elite. The only other game that I've ever put as much time as I did into this one, was WoW. (And I quit that years ago.) So full disclosure. Furthermore, this review assumes you're familiar with Elite: Dangerous and are here exclusively for a Horizons review. With that said, let's begin.
So what is Elite: Dangerous Horizons? It's an expansion pack. What is an expansion pack? It's additional content that sits ontop of the previous game, expanding it one way or another. Areas, mechanics, general gameplay. See; Star Craft Brood Wars.
So to that end, it expands the basic interstellar gameplay of Elite: Dangerous by adding a planetary layer on top of it. To an extent. Atmospheric flight is still not an option, however believe me, there are plenty of planets & moons out there without an atmosphere to explore. After all, we are still talking about a 1:1 representation of the Milky Way Galaxy.
However vastness doesn't mean depth. A great example of this would be Skyrim. Vast, expansive world, with no depth to speak of. (Unless you mean actual depth, in the form of Dwemer Ruins =P)
A common complaint labeled against Elite: Dangerous is that it has no depth of content, which I will not blame people for. That is not even a false criticism, however it's made for all the wrong reasons. The game uses RNG content streaming, which sadly, is quite poorly designed, not to mention "balanced", coupled with the very limited number of type of encounters you could have, it's understandable people would think the gameworld is without soul. So the question is, did Horizons improve on this?
Well to a certain extent; The mechanic of randomly spawning encounters remain(and I suspect it'll be a mechanic the developer intends to expand upon in the future) but their frequency is now more consistent, as well as appearing on planets' surfaces. Last but not least, the variety has been increased, adding flair to the world. Rescue teams recovering black boxes from shipwrecks, pirate outposts on moons, just to name a couple. However, is this yet a viable way of giving gameplay to the players? Well, while vastly improved over Season 1 of Elite, it's still a long way from providing people with a consistent gameplay. It's clunky & awkward.
But I'm avoiding the main "selling point" of Horizons. The SRV or Surface Reconnaissance Vehicle. A sort of all purpose moon buggy that can manage lowest to highest G planets. All in all, there's very little wrong with this new little beastie. Driving around in it is satisfying and you can pull off some cool tricks if you master the controls. You'll set out in this little fellow to do what there is to be done. Explore randomly spawning encounters, assault planetary bases (Don't try it at home.) or race with your friends. However I have a major gripe with the SRV, which is that there's only one currently available. It's easy to draw a comparison between the SRV and ships. The SRV to Horizons is what ships are to the base game, which launched with several of them. Therefor, I find it's extremely poor that a full priced expansion pack launches with only one type of SRV available. A definite black mark.
So what else is there? Well there's the first building blocks of crafting present in the 2.0 release, called "Synthesis". This is exclusively for personal use. The way it works is that players gather "Materials"(Ie: Iron, Zinc, Nickel, Chromium etc) from the surfaces of planets, which then we can use to synthesise different items. Ammo for our projectile weapons, fuel for our SRV or even increase our FSD range temporarily. A welcome addition, further increasing Elite's gameplay loop.
Some people will be happy to know that the Bulletin Board received an update(Balancing issues not withstanding). Most if not all missions are now multi-step, requiring players to complete specific tasks & meet specific requirements to successfully complete a mission. This can be anything from avoiding your ship getting scanned while smuggling to meeting an NPC in a specific star system within a specified time window to pick up a package. A much welcome update, turning the Bulletin Board from a one stop shop for instant money into something which actually gets people thinking. However, it's by far from perfect. Often the mission objectives are unclear & not very specific. Definitely has room for improvement.
On top of all that, like with most major updates to Elite, come a vast slew of other improvements based on community feedback. Improved HUD elements to give players more info about their journey so far, more accurate way of tracking faction & rank progression, those sort of things. Although the performance of the System Map & Galaxy Map remain a standing issue, which have been a sore problem for quite some time now.
So what is my final verdict on Horizons? Like I said in my introduction, but it bears repeating, I'm probably extremely biased.
I love Elite to a fault and Horizons is more of it. A true expansion pack. However I simply can't recommend it to the average consumer in its current stage. Over the next year the game'll receive many, many major content updates (Similar to the base game.) that'll vastly improve and expand on both gameplay loop & content (As the narrative of the Galaxy is ever evolving.). Multi-crew ships, a character creator & ship launched fighters to name a few.
If you are a dedicated Elite player, you're looking forward to this. But that's not now. That's in the future & a game must be judged on its current merits. For the average consumer, buying Horizons at its current price point is not recommended. It's worth about half the price, while the other half of the price is an investment for future updates. On the one hand, a business model much more consumer friendly than DLC Passes but on the other, this reviewer wonders why not release the expansion when it's all fallen into place?
So what is Elite: Dangerous Horizons? It's an expansion pack. What is an expansion pack? It's additional content that sits ontop of the previous game, expanding it one way or another. Areas, mechanics, general gameplay. See; Star Craft Brood Wars.
So to that end, it expands the basic interstellar gameplay of Elite: Dangerous by adding a planetary layer on top of it. To an extent. Atmospheric flight is still not an option, however believe me, there are plenty of planets & moons out there without an atmosphere to explore. After all, we are still talking about a 1:1 representation of the Milky Way Galaxy.
However vastness doesn't mean depth. A great example of this would be Skyrim. Vast, expansive world, with no depth to speak of. (Unless you mean actual depth, in the form of Dwemer Ruins =P)
A common complaint labeled against Elite: Dangerous is that it has no depth of content, which I will not blame people for. That is not even a false criticism, however it's made for all the wrong reasons. The game uses RNG content streaming, which sadly, is quite poorly designed, not to mention "balanced", coupled with the very limited number of type of encounters you could have, it's understandable people would think the gameworld is without soul. So the question is, did Horizons improve on this?
Well to a certain extent; The mechanic of randomly spawning encounters remain(and I suspect it'll be a mechanic the developer intends to expand upon in the future) but their frequency is now more consistent, as well as appearing on planets' surfaces. Last but not least, the variety has been increased, adding flair to the world. Rescue teams recovering black boxes from shipwrecks, pirate outposts on moons, just to name a couple. However, is this yet a viable way of giving gameplay to the players? Well, while vastly improved over Season 1 of Elite, it's still a long way from providing people with a consistent gameplay. It's clunky & awkward.
But I'm avoiding the main "selling point" of Horizons. The SRV or Surface Reconnaissance Vehicle. A sort of all purpose moon buggy that can manage lowest to highest G planets. All in all, there's very little wrong with this new little beastie. Driving around in it is satisfying and you can pull off some cool tricks if you master the controls. You'll set out in this little fellow to do what there is to be done. Explore randomly spawning encounters, assault planetary bases (Don't try it at home.) or race with your friends. However I have a major gripe with the SRV, which is that there's only one currently available. It's easy to draw a comparison between the SRV and ships. The SRV to Horizons is what ships are to the base game, which launched with several of them. Therefor, I find it's extremely poor that a full priced expansion pack launches with only one type of SRV available. A definite black mark.
So what else is there? Well there's the first building blocks of crafting present in the 2.0 release, called "Synthesis". This is exclusively for personal use. The way it works is that players gather "Materials"(Ie: Iron, Zinc, Nickel, Chromium etc) from the surfaces of planets, which then we can use to synthesise different items. Ammo for our projectile weapons, fuel for our SRV or even increase our FSD range temporarily. A welcome addition, further increasing Elite's gameplay loop.
Some people will be happy to know that the Bulletin Board received an update(Balancing issues not withstanding). Most if not all missions are now multi-step, requiring players to complete specific tasks & meet specific requirements to successfully complete a mission. This can be anything from avoiding your ship getting scanned while smuggling to meeting an NPC in a specific star system within a specified time window to pick up a package. A much welcome update, turning the Bulletin Board from a one stop shop for instant money into something which actually gets people thinking. However, it's by far from perfect. Often the mission objectives are unclear & not very specific. Definitely has room for improvement.
On top of all that, like with most major updates to Elite, come a vast slew of other improvements based on community feedback. Improved HUD elements to give players more info about their journey so far, more accurate way of tracking faction & rank progression, those sort of things. Although the performance of the System Map & Galaxy Map remain a standing issue, which have been a sore problem for quite some time now.
So what is my final verdict on Horizons? Like I said in my introduction, but it bears repeating, I'm probably extremely biased.
I love Elite to a fault and Horizons is more of it. A true expansion pack. However I simply can't recommend it to the average consumer in its current stage. Over the next year the game'll receive many, many major content updates (Similar to the base game.) that'll vastly improve and expand on both gameplay loop & content (As the narrative of the Galaxy is ever evolving.). Multi-crew ships, a character creator & ship launched fighters to name a few.
If you are a dedicated Elite player, you're looking forward to this. But that's not now. That's in the future & a game must be judged on its current merits. For the average consumer, buying Horizons at its current price point is not recommended. It's worth about half the price, while the other half of the price is an investment for future updates. On the one hand, a business model much more consumer friendly than DLC Passes but on the other, this reviewer wonders why not release the expansion when it's all fallen into place?
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