"Elite Dangerous" dev Frontier Developments is giving up on the game's development on consoles.
According to a report by WindowsCentral, work on the "Odyssey" DLC has been canceled as the team now looks to only improve the game on PC. Company CEO David Braben gave a reason for the decision in a developer post on the Frontier forums.
Braben's statement revealed that the obvious problems with the launch of "Odyssey" on both PCs and consoles were to blame. He cited "the need to split" the two platforms' player base because of problems related to merging the two very different codebases, which were the consoles' pre-Odyssey codebase and the PC's post-Odyssey codebase.
But while this might not sound good, the CEO revealed that PlayStation and Xbox versions of the game will keep working. They will also continue receiving critical updates. The only thing they won't get is new story content, which is among their main goals for "Elite Dangerous" on PC.
With this confirmation, it can be also safe to assume that the game will not get to see development of a dedicated next-gen version on the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X anymore. For now, the game is only available on said consoles via backwards compatibility with PS4 and Xbox One versions.
The Massive Trouble With 'Odyssey'
Ahead of its release, "Odyssey" was supposed to be the DLC that will take "Elite Dangerous" to the next level. For one, it was the first time that Frontier added on-foot exploration to the space-sim, which previously only limited players to the safety of their ships.
But whatever "Odyssey" brought wasn't exciting. Rather, it turned out to be a massive disappointment due to reports of massive performance issues, a ton of bugs, and server problems, writes Eurogamer. It earned mostly negative reviews on Steam days after it first launched. And even today, all reviews remain on the mostly negative spectrum based on its Steam page.
Read Also: 'Elite: Dangerous' Player Awarded $15,000 For Being The Best
What's Next For 'Elite Dangerous' Moving Forward?
Since the game will now only receive new content on PC, what's in the immediate future for Frontier Developments?
As for now, they didn't share any content roadmap for the next few years after announcing the cancellation of development for PlayStation and Xbox. All that Braben said is that the development team will share new info on their future plans "in due course," and nothing else. But perhaps it could be safe to assume that they'd like to right the ship after the disastrous launch of "Odyssey" last year.
Since its launch, the DLC has gotten numerous fixes (a total of ten, as per the original Eurogamer report) as of January 2022. Among the problems that they fixed were black screens, crashes, failed launch, stuck loading screens, and a whole lot of game-breaking bugs.
Many fans are expecting to get new content, though, judging by YouTube videos speculating on the game's future. As mentioned in this video by Obsidian Ant, they're looking forward to things like fleet carrier interiors, as well as fixes for problems like a lack of ability to detect hostile ships-which has been reportedly an issue left unfixed from earlier updates.
Related Article: 'Elite Dangerous: Arena' Is A Standalone Shooter Spinoff For Those Interested Only In Fighting
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by RJ Pierce
