Elite: Dangerous

Elite: Dangerous puts you in some amazing spaceships, but doesn't always give you a lot to do with them.

Although slow and complicated at times, Elite: Dangerous nevertheless provides a rewarding open-world experience on Xbox One.

There's a lot of balancing to be done in the long term, then, and the big hurdle for new players will be getting up to speed without losing interest in those stodgy early hours. The mid-point, where everything coalesces, is so liberating, so brilliant in its scope and possibility, that it's hard to be too upset about these wrinkles. For all its frustrations, you'll spend much longer in the sweet spot than you spend getting there. Elite: Dangerous demands much, but repays your devotion many times over.

A great game and, with time, potentially a classic. Much rests on Frontier's ability to build on these broad but somewhat shallow foundations.

Massive, intimidating, and stunningly beautiful, Elite: Dangerous is one of the deepest, most rewarding open-world experiences you can have on Xbox One.

Despite a solid framework for an incredible game, right now the title can feel barren and lacking in variety

[W]ithout doubt, Elite: Dangerous is a purchase that will provide inestimable value, delivering many hours of gameplay opportunities and experiences. Furthermore, this is a developing universe, with many planned updates and new features due over the coming months. It seems likely that the depth and scale of the experience is only going in one direction: to the stars.

Most of the time, Elite works. The excitement, even the boredom, of the game is still preserved for me as something I am happy to have paid for. But it would be a poor reviewer indeed who did not mention that the sim's rough edges have not been satisfactorily sanded down.

If you read up on the planets for fun, enjoy movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, or Moon, or find the idea of hauling cargo from system to system and maybe getting in the odd fight along the way appealing, there is very little else out there like Elite Dangerous. I'm highly recommending it despite the tedium in its game play and the long periods of time you will spend just looking at stars/reading stuff on a screen. It is a beautiful, one of a kind experience that I cherish, one of my favourite games in the last few years, and the PlayStation 4 release is no exception.

With a legacy stretching way back in gaming history, the Elite series has always asked a lot of its commanders and Elite Dangerous is no different. With so many game systems packed into this gigantic space-sim, it's unsurprising that for new players the first small step can feel more like a giant leap. Even after getting over any initial frustrations, the frequently vexing mechanics will test your patience time and time again, but despite these issues there's a magic to Elite Dangerous that will keep you playing. Whether it's a close encounter with a white dwarf, an intense dogfight, or a just cruising between star systems, the freedom and opportunity laid across its billions of stars means that Elite Dangerous offers spectacular space-tourism all from the comfort of your sofa.