Elite Dangerous is a space simulator that released out in 2014. The live service game has survived mostly by community-driven events and discoveries as Frontier Development slowly rolls out small patches and updates to add some new content such as new ships, new mining material, and the return of series antagonist the Thargoids. Elite Dangerous did receive its first major expansions, Horizons, in 2015 which added crafting, multi-crew functionality, but mostly the ability to land on planets and moons that did not have atmospheres and explore them with a ground vehicle. Just this month Elite Dangerous got another large update with the addition of fleet carriers, allowing players to get capital class ships for 5 billion credits, 7.4 billion to fully upgrade it, and will cost a billion a year in maintenance fees.
Now Frontier Development revealed the next major expansion and like Horizons, it will be a paid expansion and not necessary to play the game. Odyssey will be adding two massively requested features: space legs, or the ability to leave the cockpit, and atmospheric flight models allowing ships to fly and land on planets with atmospheres.
With both the space legs and atmospheric landings will allow people to explore planets on foot and interact with NPC characters or shops instead of a pop-up menu. Players will be able to participate in combat with handheld weapons, fleshing out planetary battles with on-foot players, the lightly armed vehicles, and the various ships which will set the stage for player groups to wage micro wars.
Nothing in the trailer or from Frontier Development has answered questions about base building or exploring space stations and planetside cities. All that was shown is the ability to explore barren planets so far without any notable biomes, much less visiting Earth. It is unclear if player ships will have fully fleshed out interiors instead of only the cockpit that it has now. It is also unknown if players can steal grounded ships like what is possible in Star Citizen. Odyssey will be one of the largest expansions for Elite Dangerous and will seal its position as one of the largest space games alongside Star Citizen and No Mans Sky. Odyssey will be out in 2021 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.