The Elite Dangerous beta has been reduced in price - it’s now £50, which is down from the intimidatingly expensive original price of £200. Still a ludicrous price for a beta, but at least it’s no longer obscene.
The first regular beta phase, known as Beta 1, has now begun, replacing the ‘Premium Beta’ that those who splashed out cash to play the game first will have experienced.
So what does that mean in terms of new additions? Well, there’s ten times the number of playable star systems now, each with a huge variety of space stations, industrial zones, trading markets and so on to explore. Developer Frontier has also added a bunch of grace features for those that want to play together - voice-chat, matchmaking, grouping, that kind of thing.
Basically the further the price goes down, the more stuff you actually get for your money. The world is mad. There’s also two new ships; the Viper heavy fighter and Lakon Type 6 medium trader. You can check out both those new rides in the announcement trailer above.
Right now the beta is only available in English, but Frontier hope to localize the game in multiple languages for future builds. You can buy it from the Elite Dangerous online store.
