Frontier on the constant evolution of Elite: Dangerous

There's a new Elite in the works, and it's coming along nicely we're glad to say after sampling the space simulation at E3, both by standard controller and screen and with a flight stick and Oculus Rift. After our hands-on session we cornered producer Adam Woods in the Frontier lounge to discuss the progress made with the game - a game David Braben and Frontier wanted to make for years, but weren't able to until crowdfunding avenues became available.

"I'm really proud to be here," says producer Adam Woods. "To be part of Elite, to be working on a game like this. It's really, really exciting. And really, really, you know. Just proud to be here and get the feedback from players and respective press guys is awesome. It's amazing."

Frontier Developments are reaping the benefits of having their community engaged in the development, as evident by the fact that a number of backers served to assist press and industry folks with demos in Frontier's meeting rooms under the title of ambassadors.

"With Kickstarter it's been an open process with the backers. We've had some fantastic feedback from them. It's been a fantastic process, particularly with the alpha guys in the previous stage. We've just moved into beta now, so we're bound the get the same kind of fantastic feedback from those guys as well. It's just been an absolute joy to work with them. We're all on the same page. We're making a game that we want to play and a game they want to play as well. So we're all a nice cohessive group of people that are just working on a game that we all really, really want to play."

The immense size of the procedurably generated galaxy map is difficult to grasp as you zoom in and little dots become large clusters of star systems.

"When I had my first experience with the galaxy map and you start off zoomed in your kind of little bubble and then you just zoom out with the mouse wheel a couple of times and suddenly there is the Milky Way there. Every star you can click on. Every star has a name. And every star has some information and then in the game of course eventually if you can get there - go and explore and find out what's there. It's stunning. It really is. 400 billion stars."

"It's all based on our own in-house tech. Cobra is the engine that it works and it's associated tools. We have a long history of working with that engine so it's in a very mature state. Which is part of the reason why it works so well with the game now. And it powers all of our games from RCT 3 (Rollercoaster Tycoon 3) all the way up to Elite: Dangerous. So the tools were there ready to provide different teams such as the coders, the designers, the artists - to provide everything that we need them to do in the game. From the art assets to the design of the scenarios that you see in the kind of testing phase that we're in at the moment. The building forward to what may or may not be in the galaxy. I can't give too many secrets away, but yeah, it's all there for the exploring and we're really excited for people finding out what's out there. There's already the first great expedition, which is a team of people on the forums who are already trying to collect a group of people together so that when the game is released they've got a spread of disciplines from freighters to fighters to escorts, things like that. To try to plot how far around the galaxy they can get. It's excting to see that emergent kind of gameplay coming from our game. Here's the Milky Way. Here's a ship. Here's some tools. Go and find out what you can do."

Adams was quick to point out that exploration is just one aspect of the game as there is trading, combat and you're not just locked in to one path either - one day a pirate, the next you can be a bounty hunter (having paid any fines first). We asked if this was one aspect that separates this experience from say an Eve Online.

"I think Eve Online has its own kind of stories coming out of it," says Adams. "I find it fascinating to read some of them. I almost get a real buzz from reading all of the stories to come out of that. Obviously we're slightly different in terms of the game. We're both set in space, of course. We're both controlling ships. But obviously with ours you're inside the ship. There's a bit more of a deeper connection with you and your ship. So it's slightly different. But great for all people who want to play simulators in space."

From our impressions it's difficult to look back from having played the game with Oculus Rift and a flightstick and throttle. Space sim are obviously a great showcase for virtual reality.

"I think it works really well with the VR," says Woods. It's not obviously the only way you can play it, you can play it all kinds of displays and flight sticks from mouse and keyboard to Xbox 360 control pads on the PC to flight sticks. It's just a game that lends itself to all these new kinds of technologies that we at Frontier like to be at the very forefront with, in supporting."

What's next then?

"We have a few more beta releases coming up. A few more features that we'll be throwing in there. Then obviously we've got lots of optimisation snd bug fixing, things like that. And then in the sort of mid/distant future we've obviously got expansion packs we've already spoken briefly about that previously in different press releases and Kickstarter with such things as planetary landings, moving around your ship, getting out of your cockpit, all those sort of things."

It's like a constant evolution of Elite: Dangerous as such. We'll release the game, but then there's so much more to come in the future.