Ending where it began twelve months earlier, the standalone Elite Dangerous: Arena ceases to be sold.
Launching as a £4.99 single segment of the wider Elite Dangerous experience in February last year, developers Frontier Games has decided to remove any trace of the smaller package from Steam, Xbox and their own online store.
There's likely to be a few reasons for this decision spreading throughout the community at this point - with some being more harsh than the last - but Edward Lewis, senior community manager for the title, took to the game's official forums to give a statement saying: "We've made the decision to remove the standalone version of Elite Dangerous: Arena in order to reduce the number of builds that have to be maintained and managed"
The Elite Dangerous Community Are Not Impressed With Frontier Developments Lack Of Support
Of course, most players would argue that the CQC mode Elite Dangerous: Arena grants access to simply didn't attract enough of an audience to keep things going. Likely worried that some players would buy into it and never manage to find a match, it isn't completely without merit. The service itself isn't shutting down; but those wanting to give it a shot would now, again, need a copy of the full Elite Dangerous experience.
A dwindling playerbase within the CQC side of things, however, has been mentioned by players within the community before with them asking for the ability to queue while playing the main game or at least having the option to play again A.I bots. Will Frontier deliver?
